


The Arya x Gendry Drabbles

by crossingwinter



Series: Irresponsible Storytelling [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Era, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-02-16 07:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 119
Words: 83,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2260959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr drabbles focused on Arya x Gendry.</p><p>Rating from chapter to chapter varies from somewhat gen to really quite smutty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Found Number in a Library Book AU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rejerito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rejerito/gifts), [iheartdramas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartdramas/gifts), [meli_fan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meli_fan/gifts), [saboten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saboten/gifts), [AryaNoName](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AryaNoName), [lady_illiya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_illiya/gifts), [MissCatena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCatena/gifts), [ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/gifts), [jeeno2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/gifts), [WanderingRock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingRock/gifts), [bookskitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookskitten/gifts).



> If you requested a drabble on tumblr, and have an AO3 account that you want this "gifted" to, let me know!
> 
> \--
> 
> This chapter was written for [exactlythesamebutdifferent](exactlythesamebutdifferent.tumblr.com).

"Good with his hands: +985254104921" was all the note scribbled in the margin of  _The Causes and Myths of the Cold War_  had said.  For a laugh, Sansa had put the number in her phone as “Handyman.”

Sometimes, when she was drunk, Arya texted him.

Well, not sometimes. Always.

And what surprised her most was that he always responded.  And not just with a “who is this?”—actually responded.

_Arya Stark: How do airplanes stay up?_

_Handyman: Buoyant force, I think?  I’m not a physicist though.  I’d ask one of them._

_-_

_Arya Stark: Have you ever listened to Swords in the Morning?_

_Handyman: Sometimes.  Usually at the gym._

_-_

_Arya Stark: Do you realize that someone described you as good with your hands in a library book?_

_Handyman: No.  But this explains a great deal._

_-_

Those were her favorites.

It wasn’t until a Saturday night in June—right after finals and before she and Sansa would make the long drive North for the summer that Handyman called her.

"So," he slurred into the phone, "did you actually get my number out of a book?"

"Yes."

"Why do you text me?"

"Why not?"

"Fairrr enough."  He hiccuped.  "Do you actually no my name?"

"You’re in my phone as ‘Handyman,’" she confessed.

He was silent for a moment, then he said, “Oh.  You can’t see me nodding, can you?”

"No."

"I like your texts."

"I like yours," she said.  

"Do you want to meet sometime?  I’ll keep my hands to myself and everything," he said.

Arya glanced at her packed bags.  ”I’m leaving tomorrow at seven in the morning, so it’s now or never.”

"Oh.  Where are you?"

"King’s Landing.  Aegon’s Hill."

"I’m in flea bottom.  Meet at the fountain on Pisspot Square?"

"See you in twenty."

She knew it was a bad idea, meeting a drunk stranger alone at night.  She knew it was.  So she grabbed her pepper spray and wore her sneakers and hurried down the way.

He was sitting on the edge of the fountain, staring at his cell phone.  

"I was scared you’d be a bloke," he said as she approached.

"Yeah, well, I’m not."  Her arms were crossed over her chest now, the pepper spray hidden under her arm.

"I’m not going to do anything, you know.  I just wanted to meet you," he shrugged.  "You’re basically a mystery and you keep texting me."

"Well, here I am."

"You’re short."

"You’re freakishly tall."

He laughed and swayed.

"What’s your name?" she asked.

"Gendry.  And you?"

"Arya."

He mouthed her name and hiccuped.

"I’m too drunk to do this now," he sighed.  "When you get back, want to meet up?  See a film or something?"

She nodded.

He got to his feet.

"Goodnight, Arya."  And he walked back towards Flea Bottom.


	2. Oral Sex in the Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: Imagine Person A shampooing and rinsing Person B’s hair in the shower - whilst Person B gives Person A oral sex.

There isn’t really a good angle for it. Gendry is too tall for her to sit on the edge of the bath tub while he kneels between her legs, and she does not trust him to hold her weight entirely. (It is slippery. And he’d probably feel terrible if he dropped her and she hurt her head. As well he should. Nothing to kill a boner quite like hitting your head against the white enamel of the shower.)

She has one leg propped over his shoulder as his tongue slides into her, and, for all this position allows the best access, she can’t throw her head back the way she wants to because of the aforementioned enamel. Instead she has to keep perfectly still, clutching Gendry’s head in one hand and the shower rail with the other to keep herself upright, because it is going to be that kind of a morning.

"Gendry, we don’t have time for this," she moans. "You need to actually shower, you know. You can’t just get me off."

She feels him smile against her and he says, barely removing his lips from her slit, “So help me, will you?” and he shifts upwards ever so slightly.

A tremor shoots up from her clit to her stomach and throat and she groans. Oh, this is going to be a good one, and she had promised herself she wouldn’t have intense sex in the morning because it left her too drained when she went to practice, but she supposed it was too late for that.

She fumbles for the shampoo and squeezes too much on his head. She throws the bottle aside and begins rubbing it through his wiry hair, feeling it begin to lather in her hands.

Gendry makes a pleased little huff and his tongue begins circling her clit with a new vigor and oh god, oh god, it is too early for this…

She is glad that her leg is resting on his shoulder. She would otherwise have keeled over sideways, her knees are trembling so much. Gendry takes her ass in his hands and gently pulls her down onto the shower floor with him. He tilts his head back slightly to let the suds in his hair rinse off, then grins at her, watching as her heart rate slows and her breathing steadies.

"Thanks for the wash," he teases.

"Shut up," she mutters, kissing him and tasting herself on his tongue.


	3. The hardest part is keeping it a secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [iheartdramas](iheartdramas.tumblr.com).

The hardest part is keeping it a secret. Not that it’s actually a secret, of course. Jon rolls his eyes at her enough for her to know that he knows—and Robb bites his lip, and Sansa furrows her eyebrows and Bran hints and Rickon just hits his head against the wall; but Mum and Dad don’t know and that’s what’s important.

Arya’s bedroom door doesn’t have a lock on it. Gendry showed her a trick with putting her desk chair on an angle under the handle so that it keeps it from being opened, the problem of course being that her father would want to know why she’d done that if he tried to come in without knocking, and chances were that she and Gendry would be in some state of undress and she’d really not want her father coming through the door. 

She had developed a plan to get Gendry out her window and onto the roof of the house if that happened ever. He had laughed and asked if he was supposed to go naked, or if he was supposed to find his pants. She’d elbowed him; he’d kissed her; they’d never resolved the issue.


	4. Gendry gets a new job.

Of course she was the last to go. Of course she was. Stupid Lommy or Hot Pie couldn’t have gone after her—they all had to go first, didn’t they?

“I—um,” she began, already feeling that ache in her throat right below her glands that felt so very like swollen glands but definitely, definitely wasn’t. “You were the first friend I made here,” she said. She couldn’t look at him, oh god, he was leaving, he was really going and abandoning her here with a pile of work and no one to laugh it off with. “And I can’t really imagine anything without you. And I’m happy for you—really, really happy for you—that you’re moving on to bigger and better things, but I know that I’ll miss you too much—and,” she bit her lip because oh god, there was that prick in her eyes that she’d been dreading ever since Thoros had gone on and on about how Gendry had just grown tremendously in his job, and how they expected to hear great updates from his life because he was destined for greatness. “And if you don’t go on gchat at your new fancy job with your new fancy office, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

“Someone call HR,” Gendry teased, but there was a brightness to his blue eyes. Arya looked away, and shoved a piece of cake in her mouth because at least cake never left you before you were done with it—no—wait, scratch that. You were never done with cake. It always left too soon, there was never enough of it. Gendry was exactly like cake and oh god, he was going to be gone on Monday.


	5. Film Student AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [winginoverthings](winginoverthings.tumblr.com).

Arya knew she’s been awake too long when she started staring at Gendry’s butt.

Gendry’s butt was very nice. It was properly buoyant, she’d say, if she had to choose a word—not that she did have to choose a word—oh god, why had she chosen buoyant? It was just there—round and hard and soft and perfect and right in her face as she sat in the chair and only feeling slightly more sorry for the poor actors who were supposed to have finished five hours ago. But she wasn’t that sorry for them. If they just got the damn scene right…then maybe this wouldn’t be the problem. Maybe then she’d be able to go home and not think about Gendry’s butt, because if she kept thinking about Gendry’s butt she was definitely going to imagine it naked and…

Shit.

Gendry’s naked butt. It was probably like some damn statue, wasn’t it? It probably had a dimple too. 

"Arya?" 

"Yes Gendry?"

"Are you staring at my ass?" 

"Yes."

"Can you not?"

"It’s right there and it’s quite lovely," she said.

"Yeah but it’s distracting," he replied.

"Distracting in a good way or a bad way?"

"Well, given that everyone already hates me for making them do more takes, I’ll say a bad way."

"Why don’t you wrap it up and I’ll make it worth your while," she suggested, half-teasing. She hadn’t expected him to stare at her, his jaw to drop and for him to mutter, "Really?"

She paused…and then visions of Gendry’s naked butt filled her head and she nodded.

"That’s a wrap for the night. Good work people," Gendry said without even looking at any of them.

That was how Arya ended up in a storage closet down the hall, her back pressed against the door and Gendry’s lips on her neck, sucking bruises into her skin as she kneaded into his ass—it was hard and soft at the same time, just like she’d thought. Oh, this felt good. This felt very good. Even in her exhausted frame of mind, Arya could tell that this was a good plan and was congratulating herself, even as she tugged at Gendry’s belt while he tugged at the button of her jeans. She couldn’t stop grinning as she shed her pants, and he shed his, and he was buried deep inside her, stretching her more than she could have thought as she wrapped her legs around his hips and let him hold her against the door as he thrust in, and out, and in, and out, and deeper into her flesh than she had ever thought anyone could go while their breath mingled together in the dark, and their grunts and moans mixed together in harmony.


	6. TA and Student AU

"Could you repeat that?" she smirks up at him and he does his best not to roll his eyes. That will give up the game, and he really would prefer not to be fired and/or expelled for carrying on an affair with an undergrad.

"Repeat what?" he asks instead, making a show of looking back down at his outline.

"The bit about what Professor Mott said about human sexuality," she says. He knows her too well, the way she can make a dry comment sound teasing, the way even the most obvious sarcasm has a hint of…

"Would someone else care to share that information with Arya? Since she was busy daydreaming? Hot Pie?"

He watches her not listening to Hot Pie, watches the way she chews her lip because he knows when she is chewing her lip she is thinking about ducking his cock and he has to think about his approaching thesis defense so as not to pop a boner in the middle of their discussion section.

"Did that clarify the point for you?" he asks when Hot Pie finishes.

"I guess. There’s some that’s a bit unclear but," she bites her lip again, "I can find you after section."


	7. Wedding Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [akosiroxy](http://akosiroxy.tumblr.com).

"I quite like you in a tux," she said, running her hands along his shoulders. He didn’t even stop his conversation with Mr. Mott, but kept on describing the exact itinerary of their honeymoon.

Arya, not to be ignored, and certainly not on this of all days, stood on the tips of her toes and whispered into his ear, “It makes your ass look very,very fine.”

"Then we head to the Basilisk Isles for four days, for hiking and beach going and," Gendry continued on, and she dropped her hands from his shoulders to his waist and kissed him on the back of his neck, her fingers inching along the waist of his suit pants until she found the perfect place to pinch him.

"Did you need something, darling?" he asked, twisting around to look at her and she was pleased to hear the way his voice started off high pitched before dropping, clearly surprised at the pinch.

"Oh, no. I just thought I would come over to say hello," she said, smiling innocently up at him.

She heard Mr. Mott say something about “leaving you to your wife” but she didn’t pay attention. Nor, truly, did Gendry who turned around mare fully and rested his forehead against hers, taking her hands in his. “I like this view of you,” he said, looking down pointedly at the very low neckline of her dress.

"Why, Mr. Waters, are you flirting with me?" she had meant it to sound more playful than it did. But it didn’t matter, because his lips were on hers and the way he kissed her, fully on the mouth, his hand releasing hers so that it came up to support her head and neck as she reached up to grab his shoulder, heat dropping from her mouth to her stomach as she tasted the way that champagne mixed with the familiar flavor of Gendry.

"Always, Mrs. Waters," he replied lips ghosting over hers, as guests applauded and catcalled. "Always."


	8. Arya and Cigarettes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [winginoverthings](http://winginoverthings.tumblr.com).

"That’s not— _Arya.”_

"What?"

"When did you start smoking?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do, clearly.  Arya—you  _know_  that’s bad for you.  You know it’ll kill you, right?”

"Will it?  And here I thought the giant ‘SMOKING KILLS’ warning was just for artistry."

"You’ll get lung cancer.  Or emphysema.  Or throat cancer.  Or tongue cancer.  Also you’ll taste like gross ash and I won’t want that near me, but that’s hardly as important as the dying thing.  I just thought I’d register it.  Since sometimes, you don’t really pay attention to the self-preservation arguments."

"Hey, I pay plenty of attention to the self-preservation arguments."

"Really, now?"

"Yes.  I just don’t take them to heart.  But don’t worry.  I listen to them plenty."

"I can’t believe you’re actually going to put that thing in your mouth."

"It’s not the most dirty thing that’s been in th—"

“ _Arya_.”

"You’re really upset, aren’t you?"

“ _Yes!  I am!_ You’re going to die.”

"I hardly think one cigarette is going to kill me, Gendry."

"Yes, but it’s the gateway.  Into more.  Which will kill you.  According to science."

"Hey Gendry?"

"What?"

"Can I tell you something?"

"You’re going to tell me to fuck off and it’s your decision, aren’t you?"

"Well, as a rule, but this time, I was just going to share that this is in fact a  _chocolate_  cigarette.”

"It’s—"

"Chocolate.  Fair trade too.  Dark chocolate."

"Oh I’m going to kill you."

"I thought you wanted me to stay away from things that would kill me?"

"Oh get over here you moron."


	9. Asha x Jon (Video Games AU I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [winginovertings](http://winginoverthings.tumblr.com).

At first she thought the one she’d have to worry about most was Robb. Robb was Theon’s best friend, and knew about the whole joke sexting thing…She could completely understand if he wanted her as far away from his brother as possible.

But Robb had liked her well enough. He liked anyone that put a smile on Jon’s long, somber face and spent most of their dinner out—her and Jon; him and Jeyne—telling stories about when Jon was a toddler and had a bad habit of walking headfirst into tables. Jon had blushed until he was nearly purple, and hadn’t been able to look at her for a good twenty minutes, even though she tried telling stories about Theon in diapers that had had Robb howling with mirth.

From there, it was Jon’s exes. Jon was one of those infuriating types who stayed very close to his ex-girlfriends, and Asha had had enough experience being furiously jealous of Qarl’s new girls not to be a little worried. (A little. She wasn’t scared. But still, Jon had a type, and that type was fiery, and if she was anything, it wasn’t stupid). But Ygritte and Val had decided that Jon was going for a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead just so he could tell jokes about them in the future, and so the three of them decided loudly what they would do to him if he tried.

"Arya will love you," Jon had said as he’d turned off the car. "Arya…you’ll see. She’ll love you." And he had kissed her and she’d contemplated giving him a hand job just because the car was stopped now, but he got out before she had decided.

Arya was playing video games when they came up to her dorm room, sitting with three boys and shouting loudly that they could all go fuck themselves because if it took the three of them beating up on her to win, clearly they were cowardly and weak and not very good at the game. She threw her controller down on the table and glanced at the door to the common room, a smile spreading across her face.

"You ready to go?" Jon asked.

"Yeah. These morons don’t like playing with me. I school their asses every time," she said, extracting herself from the couch.

"You do not," said a big one, glaring at her as she got up with light blue eyes. The other two took his momentary distraction as a sign of weakness and their avatars were on his in just a moment. "Fuck you!" he yelped, turning his attention back to the game.

"See? How do you like it? Ass-nugget," Arya snapped. She picked up her coat from a spare chair and shrugged into it. Asha suppressed a smile. Oh, she was going to like Jon’s little sister.

"Right? Where we headed?" she asked Jon. She hadn’t even so much as said hello, but Asha didn’t care. 

"I was thinking that crappy pizza place that we went to when we moved you in?" Jon suggested.

"Sounds good," Arya replied and they made their way into the hallway.

"I’m just going to run into the bathroom first," Jon said quickly, crossing the hallway. He tossed his keys to Asha. "I’ll meet you down at the car if you like."

They stood there for a moment, looking curiously at one another, and Asha heard a cry of “Fucking fuck!” from inside the common room. Arya snorted and muttered, “Idiot,” under her breath.

"So, you play with them often, then?" Asha asked.

"Eh. When they let me. I am significantly better than they are, even if they won’t admit it. They don’t like that I beat them all the time." 

"I can’t imagine they would. Never go easy on them. They’ll get the wrong ideas."

"As if," snorted Arya. Then, her eyes narrowed. "If you hurt him, you’ll regret it."

"What?" Asha said, blinking.

"Jon. If you hurt him, you’ll have me to answer to. And it won’t be a fun answering, I can tell you that." Her hands were on her hips and her jaw was set and her grey eyes—the same eyes that Jon had—were hard.

"I won’t," Asha said slowly. She knew better than to back away, though that was what her instinct was telling her to do. It would send the wrong message. And besides, she was quite sure that Arya wouldn’t respond well to weakness.

Arya nodded slowly, a sinister smile creeping across her face. Then she made her way to the stairwell and took the stairs down two at a time. Asha followed her, completely bewildered and somehow, unexpectedly, nervous.


	10. Video Games AU II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [sabotensan](http://sabotensan.tumblr.com).
> 
> The video games AU, btw, is loosely inspired by [this piece of fanart](http://sabotensan.tumblr.com/post/96023605793/gabriel-stone-gendry-x-arya-seven-hells).

"Oh come  _on!_ " Jon snapped as Asha edged his car off the edge of Rainbow Road for the sixth time that afternoon.  "Why can’t you go pick on Arya for once?" He looked sadly at the way his Yoshi was flailing as he fell.

"Well, I happen to think you’re cheeky and she’s all right, so…" Asha winked at him.  She was beginning her last lap, her Metal Mario jumping a little bit in celebration as he crossed the line.  

Arya was just ahead of Asha now, her tongue between her teeth as she focused, and Gendry was only a little bit behind, his King Kong swerving deftly around Yoshi as he was deposited back on the road.

Jon didn’t even bother trying to catch up.  He knew he wouldn’t.  So instead, he just stopped his car right in front of the finish line and watched as Asha’s eyes glowed with intensity.  ”Come on,” she muttered as Metal Mario approached Toad.  He shot a glance at Arya, who was smirking and she dropped a red shell.  Asha’s car spun dangerously close to the edge of the road then—

"Fuck!" she shouted.  She was off, Metal Mario flailing as he dropped into the blackness.

"Hah!" yelled Jon at the same time that Arya shouted, "That’s what you get for being a bully to my brother!"

"A bully?" Asha sputtered.  "How was I a bully?  I  _plan_  on making it up to him later.”

"Well," Arya was coasting through now.  She’d used a mushroom, to Gendry’s muttered frustration, and was speeding along easily over the rainbow pathway.  "You picked on him.  And, let’s be real here,  _I’m_  the real challenge.”

"Thanks," grumbled Jon and Gendry at the same time.

"Oh please, I’m running circles around you two losers," shrugged Arya.

"Oh fuck off," said Gendry at the same time that Jon growled, "Only because Asha was—"

"Exactly.  Only because Asha was.  Which was why I knocked her off the road."  Arya got around Jon easily, since he wasn’t even paying attention and Toad did a victory dance in his car.  "Anyone up for a second round?" she asked, grinning.

No one said a thing, and Arya rolled her eyes, muttering about sore losers.


	11. Mamihlapinatapei (Video Games AU III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [akosiroxy](http://akosiroxy.tumblr.com).

It wasn’t supposed to happen—it really wasn’t. They were supposed to keep laughing and until they were done and then go back to Mario Kart and she was supposed to beat him again on Rainbow Road just to prove that it wasn’t a fluke that she’d done it the last time, and then they were supposed to go get Pizza and meet up with Lommy and Hot Pie and make fun of the way that everyone looking at Arya thought she was a boy at first glance.

They weren’t supposed to stop laughing and keep staring at each other, she wasn’t supposed to notice just how blue his eyes were, she wasn’t supposed to be able to count the number of freckles on his face, or notice how he’d missed a spot shaving that morning, or the exact shape of his lips, or any of it, but she did and she couldn’t stop because if she looked away—if she stopped looking at him, she would notice how he was staring at her as if she were some sort of star, so bright yet so perfect that he couldn’t look away and what if that look on his face was the way that she was looking.

She would be devastated if he looked away. So she couldn’t either.


	12. 4A-5A

Gendry jerks awake to a loud banging, and the undoubted smash of a shattering something.  He doesn’t even bother to look blearily at his alarm clock but hoists himself out of bed and stumbles out of his bedroom and into the living room.

"Where the fuck’s the light switch?" comes a voice in the darkness.  It’s a woman’s voice, slurred with alcohol, and Gendry turns on the light next to his bedroom door. 

It’s his upstairs neighbor—the one who always looks at his butt when he’s ahead of her on the staircase, and who has long arguments on the phone with her sister, very loudly and on the fire escape.  Her eyes are glazed and she flinches at the sudden light.

"What are you doing in my apartment?" she asks, pointing at him and swaying.  "And why aren’t you wearing clothes?"

"Well, this is my apartment," he says gently.  He is wearing clothes—sort of.  He’s wearing boxers at least, though he can imagine what that might look like to her if she thought this was her apartment.

“‘s not,” she mutters, looking down at the floor.  ”And where the fuck did that lamp come from?”

He sees it now, and groans internally.  It was one from his mother’s house, with a porcelain base, and it’s in about a million pieces at her feet.  He takes a deep breath and counts to ten because if he doesn’t he might just yell.  

"It’s mine."

"Why djou bring a lamp into my apartment?"

"Well, if you look more closely, you’ll see that this apartment is in fact mine." 

She looks around and he sees comprehension begin to dawn on her face, even through the thick of the alcohol.  

"Sorry about the door," she mutters and stumbles back.  Only then does he notice that the lock seems to have been completely broken and he feels his jaw tighten.  She waves slightly as she makes her way back into the hallway and he hears her footsteps in the stairwell, climbing up a floor to the apartment where her key will undoubtedly fit the lock.

Gendry sighs and closes the door behind her, using the deadlock he hates and never bothers with.  He finds his broom and sweeps up the remainder of the lamp, then wipes up the floor with a wet rag, looking for sharp fragments he missed.  Then he goes back to bed.

Through the open window, he hears her snoring upstairs.

-

On Monday, he comes home to find a note slid under his door.

_I am very sorry about the damage I caused on Saturday Night.  I was having a rough evening, and I hope you can forgive me.  Please let me pay for the locksmith, and get you a new lamp.  Or, if you refuse that, at least let me cook you dinner._

_-Arya (5A)_

So her name was Arya. He had always wondered.  He smiled despite himself looking at her handwriting.  Then, he found a post-it note in his kitchen and wrote:

_Any of that sounds good.  Meet tonight to discuss at mine?_

_-Gendry (4A)_


	13. Detention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [rhaenysdayne](rhaenysdayne.tumblr.com).

It’s when the third piece of paper hits Gendry in the back of the head that he turns around angrily.

"Will you stop?" he snaps.  

"What’s going on back there?" barks Mr. Black, his eyes narrowed.

"Nothing, sir," he says at the same time as she does.  

"Keep quiet, then," says Mr. Black, picking his book back up.

A moment later a crumpled piece of paper hits him in the back of the head.   He takes a deep breath, turning around slowly.  The freshman behind him is grinning, and she looks down at the paper pointedly.  He bends down and picks it up, uncrumpling it to read the words, scratched in very messy handwriting,  _what are you in for?_

He rolls his eyes at her and digs a pen from his pocket.   _late to school.  you?_

  _no hall pass._

_how many did you get?_

_just the one._

_i got two.  i think they’re trying to scare me off._

_yeah, they do that._

_i’m arya.  what’s your name?_

_gendry._

_friends?  (sorry about throwing things at you.  i was curious.)_


	14. Video Games AU IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [sabotensan](http://sabotensan.tumblr.com).

It was  _Arya_ —stupid little Arya with her hell-may-care attitude and her refusal to let anyone beat her at Mario Kart.  (He thought he still had bruises from the time she’d elbowed him when they’d been neck and neck.  He’d told her she didn’t fight fair.  She’d said that that was the farthest thing from mattering she could think of, given the circumstances.)  She’d shown up at the beginning of the year all bright eyed and more nervous than she let on, and when he’d gone about introducing himself to all the freshmen, and letting them know that if they needed anything at all, he was just down the hall (and that if they planned on drinking, he was contractually obligated to report them so they should really hide their booze nice and properly).  

She’d smiled at him and shrugged and said she’d be fine—and she was.  Of all his freshman, she was fine.  She’d only ever knocked on his door to ask if he wanted to play games in the common room with her and Hot Pie and Lommy—she never to burst into tears about class stress, or drugs, or how to cope with being away from home for long periods of time.

He liked being an RA.  He liked being a point of advice, of being able to say—look, life sucks, but here’s how you make it work for you, because in all his years, that was one thing he’d been able to sort out—how to carry on when the going gets tough.

And then there was Arya who was shorter than him by a head and a half and never let him win at Mario Kart, and who he really,  _really_  shouldn’t catch himself looking at, seeing if he caught the curve between her hip and her shoulder underneath her baggy sweatshirts because one—that was pervy and gross and two—she was his friend and  _three—_ she was his  _freshman_  and he was as contractually obligated to keep his hands off as he was to report that handle of vodka he knew she kept under her bed (and didn’t report…)

But there he was, noticing how she would stand in her towel for twenty minutes outside the bathroom after a shower, just arguing with Hot Pie with a big grin on her face, and she was only in a towel and did he mention she was only in a towel?

His friends—the ones in his year—assumed that he was busy with his RA duties which was why they never saw him anymore.  ”I can’t go out,” he’d lie into his phone, “I have to keep an eye on the children.”  They’d whine at him, and he felt some sort of weird pleasure, because almost as soon as hanging up, Arya would swing around the door to his room and say, “Kart in five?  Lommy’s ordering wings.”

He liked them—their little group of Kart players.  He liked laughing with them, and poking fun of Hot Pie’s inability to keep geography straight, and the way Lommy always gave up if Arya shoved him off course too early.  He liked them a lot, knowing Lommy’s trouble at home the way he did, and Hot Pie’s struggles in his calculus class.  He liked being part of their distraction.  And Arya—it was hard  _not_  to like Arya.

That was the whole problem.  And sometimes he wondered if she had any idea just how  _much_  he liked her, just how easily she could pull a grin on his face, even when he was practically tearing his hair out over his physics p-sets and was kicking himself over and over again for majoring in MechE.  She’d just come in, and flop on his bed, and show him pictures of her dog that one of her little brothers had texted to her earlier that day, and things would just seem…seem easier.

Except they weren’t—because they couldn’t be, because he’d only fancied himself in love with Tansy and her curly red hair and her eyes that looked like chips of the sky in the middle of her face.  But he couldn’t remember what he’d actually liked about Tansy apart from her beauty these days, and he could think of a  _lot_  of things he liked about Arya that weren’t related to her physical (he groaned because he liked that too) appearance.  She was kind, and loyal, and inclusive, and intrepid, and warm, and all the sorts of things he hadn’t realized he’d wanted until she’d poked her head around the corner of his bedroom for the first time and said they had an open controller for a round of Kart if he wanted to play.

Sometimes, he caught her looking at him.  Sometimes, he caught her staring—actually.  When she just stood in the door of his room while he was working as if she weren’t sure she wanted to interrupt, or couldn’t bring herself to—he just saw her staring at him.  And when he was playing Zelda, or something one-player in the common room, she’d drift in and sit with him and offer him snacks and just watch him play, and he would get distracted because she was just there—warm, and near, and smelling like pine soap and  _there_.  

"How long’ve you been playing?" she asked him.

"An hour, maybe?" he said, not looking at the clock, because he knew he really should get back to his physics set.

"No, I mean—when did you start playing games?"

He shrugged.  ”When I was a kid, I guess.  I don’t remember.”  He did though.  He remembered it was in a shelter, and it had been warm and smelled like garlic bread cooking and there had been an N64, shiny and new and he’d played Donkey Kong for the first time and it had been enough to distract him from the fact of homelessness.

"You play really well," Arya shrugged.  "I figured you’ve been playing for a while."

"Haven’t most people been playing for a while?" he asked.  Link took a hit and he grimaced because he only had three and a half hearts left and doubted he’d get to a good checkpoint for healing before he died.

"Lommy hasn’t.  Lommy’s mom didn’t let him play growing up."

Gendry had known that, but he kept quiet.  Just because he…just because he liked, or—whatever—just because he liked Arya didn’t mean he could go and spill details like that.

"Oh," was all he said.  Link took another hit, and he cursed under his breath. 

"Why don’t you go out?" she asked him, and he was so startled that he didn’t even bother raising his mirror shield in time and Link died.  

"What do you mean?" he asked.  He hit save and turned off the console.

"I mean—you’re always here, aren’t you.  Other RAs go out. They do stuff with their friends and stuff, but you never do."

"I do stuff with my friends," he said quietly.  "I just get stuck on weekend shift a lot."

"Yeah, but you spend your Thursday nights in with us," she chided.

"Yeah, but I have tests every Friday," he shot back, mimicking her tone.  "Also, I like you all.  Aren’t I allowed to spend time with you?"

"That’s not what I meant," Arya said.  "Don’t be stupid."

"Don’t  _you_  be stupid,” he muttered.  Suddenly he felt angry and, though he would never say it aloud, stupid _,_ because he spent time in so he could spend time with her—and now she wasn’t even…she didn’t even…he got up and stalked out of the common room, and he could hear her feet light against the floor behind him, and when he got to his room, he didn’t slam the door because what if she wanted to come in.  (God, he was pathetic.)

He sat down at his desk and stared at his physics set, not really seeing the equations at all.   _Why don’t you go out?_   Did that mean she thought he was some sort of pathetic loser, then?  Was he?  He was perving after one of his freshmen after all—just because she laughed at his jokes and played games with him and, god, he was pathetic.

He heard his door click shut and saw her standing just inside, her hand resting on the handle.  

"I’m sorry," she said quietly.  "It didn’t come out right."

He did his best not to glare at her—and his best was actually pretty good, because the minute he looked at her and saw the nervousness creeping across her face, his stomach tightened.  He sighed, and pushed his chair away from his desk so that he was facing her.

"What did you mean, then?" he asked.  He didn’t pull on his RA voice—not for Arya.  Arya never needed his RA voice, never needed his voice of reason.  If anything, she laughed when he pulled it on, so he didn’t. 

"I just…I just meant…" and he saw her hand tighten on the door knob.  "I never really…I never really get why you spend as much time with us as you do.  I mean, I think I do, but then I think I’m silly and stupid and then I think I’m right—I’m definitely right—but I have no idea because why would I have any idea?"

"Why do you think?"

The question hung in the air like some sort of spell, and he saw the way her mouth opened slightly, how her grey eyes seemed to grow darker as if they were adjusting to the dimmer light of the bedroom, the way her head tilted to one side as she looked at him and she didn’t once look away—though there was a bit of a flush rising to her cheeks, rising up her neck and he—god—imagined it on her chest, somewhere underneath that hoodie of hers.

But she didn’t say a word—didn’t say anything and that was how he knew, and that was how, he saw it in her eyes, he knew that she knew that he knew and—

Her hand twisted on the door knob and she made to yank it open.

"Wait—Arya," he said quickly, leaping out of his chair and pushing a little more forcefully on the door.  He was taller than her—taller by a lot—and stronger too and when she looked over her shoulder up at him, she was so close to him—so very close…

There were a lot of things in life he’d not done because he shouldn’t.  He’d never done drugs, he’d only started drinking when it was legal, he’d never stolen anything, even though he was some kid from the streets and everyone assumed he would.  But he kissed Arya Stark against the door of his bedroom, let her wrap her arms around him as she squeaked in surprise, then in happiness, her mouth not really sure what to do against his but he would show her, his heart thudding against his chest and his hands trembling as he dropped them down to cup her face because they didn’t need to be resting on the wood of the door anymore.  Because who cared if he wasn’t allowed to, wasn’t supposed to.


	15. Sexting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [akosiroxy](http://akosiroxy.tumblr.com) and [jmeelee](http://jmeelee.tumblr.com).

His phone had been buzzing all through lecture, and he wondered what could possibly have happened.  Maybe Hot Pie had burned the house down by accident—or Lommy had fallen down the stairs and broken his ribs again.

He opened his phone to see that he had gotten twenty-one texts from Arya.

The last one, the one at the bottom of the conversation read,  _And I’m moaning your name._

He blinked and scrolled up, not entirely sure what to expect.

_I’m bored._

_I’m really bored.  Gendry—I have nothing to do._

_Why are you in class?_

_You should come back.  I’m still in bed and why aren’t you here with me?_

_Geeeendrryyyyyyyyyy_

_You could at least reply._

_Or are you pretending you’re a good student right now?  And not thinking about me._

_I don’t like being ignored, Gendry._

_Even if it’s because you are in class._

_That’s not a good excuse._

_You should be thinking of me._

_I’m thinking of you._

_You left a hicky on my nipple—did you know that?  I didn’t even know I could get a hicky there, but I seem to have one._

_Every time I touch it, it throbs._

_And I kind of like it._

_You should come back from lecture and suck on it.  I want to know what that feels like._

_I can imagine it, really.  I’m imagining it now.  I’m imagining you now, with your lips on my nipple sucking on that bruise and your fingers playing with my thighs as you ease them apart._

_It’s quite a good imagining.  I think you should imagine it too when you get these messages after class and know that I’m here_

_Lying naked_

_In bed_

_Twisting my nipples and pretending it’s you_

_And I’m moaning your name._

He almost walked into a lamp post reading the texts on his way back home, feeling the blood rushing to his—no—he was in public.  He needed at least to get to not in public before he could let him—fuck.  That fucking mental image of Arya lying there, her lips parted, her legs parted, pinching the tips of her nipples with her eyes closed, moaning his name…

He sat down on a bench outside of the library and crossed his legs, his hands trembling as he typed into his phone.

_Are you now?_

_Yes—I am._

_Still?_

_Yes.  I might have moved my hands from my nipples though,  I might be typing this one handed._

_Might?_

_Well…_

_How close are you?_

_I don’t know—I might come before you get home—unless you promise to make it worth my while.  How close are you?_

_I’m five or so minutes away._

_Well…let’s see how this plays out, shall we?  Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to keep masturbating.  I’d love the company, of course, but that’s entirely on you._

 

 


	16. Under the Table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [jeynegrey](http://jeynegrey.tumblr.com).

”Arya—will you be joining us?” Jon asks dryly.

"No.  Ghost requires my company."

Arya is sitting under the table, and Gendry can hear the thump of Ghost’s tail wagging while Arya undoubtedly pets his stomach.

Jon rolls his eyes and Gendry shrugs.  ”So.  Astrophysics,” Jon says.

"Yeah.  Astrophysics," Gendry replies.  He wishes that Arya was not under the table, but sitting next to him, smiling over at Jon and telling him to mind his own business, and that just because they met in lab, and that he was her PI didn’t mean  _anything_  so he could stop looking at Gendry that way.  

But Arya is petting Jon’s dog under the table.  

"I’d ask you questions, but I can’t say that I know anything about astrophysics," Jon says, chuckling as if he had just made a joke.

"And I’d ask you about…sociology?" Jon nods.  "But I can’t say  _I_  know anything about— _it_.”  He is very proud of himself—very proud of himself indeed, because Arya had definitely just grabbed his cock under the table.  

"Yeah—it’s hard to explain.  Most people have no idea what it is."  Oh god, oh god, she’s rubbing him now, rubbing him up and down and he kicks her gently and he thinks he hears her laugh quietly, but maybe that’s just Ghost making a sound, he can’t tell and— _oh he will bloody kill her because she’s unzipping his jeans and fuck_.  ”It doesn’t help anything that no one really knows how to explain it.  Like, professors do, but usually they get distracted mid-explanation and end up confusing the everloving shit out of everyone.”

She’s pulled him out, and is circling the tip of his cock with her finger and he’s sitting there, hard and terrified as Jon launches into an explanation of the finer points of sociology while Arya—while Arya—oh fuck she’s gone and sucked him into her mouth he’s going to  _kill her_.

Have dinner with my brother, she’d said.  It’ll be fun, she’d said.  He’s dying to meet you, she’d said.  Well, she certainly hadn’t said she’d be blowing him  _under the_   _table during dinner._

"And then of course, you have people confusing sociology and anthropology, which doesn’t…"

"Jon—can I get a little help in here?" calls Ygritte from the kitchen.

"Excuse me for just a second," Jon says, smiling and getting up.

When he’s gone, Arya sucks Gendry as deep into her throat as she can and he grips the table, willing himself to come, willing it to all be done so that he can properly murder Arya before her brother comes back into the dining room.  But he can’t do it—his force of will isn’t enough, even as he screws up his eyes, doing his best to simultaneously ignore and focus on the sounds of Ygritte and Jon arguing in the next room.

Then Arya cups his balls and he feels a swooping sensation in his stomach as he jizzes into her mouth.

He hears the sound of her swallowing, feels her slide his cock out of her mouth with a pop when she releases it fully, gently tucking it back into his boxers and his jeans.  He’s sitting there, limp with horror and as she slides back up from under the table, she’s smirking at him and he could fucking kill her.

"You—" he begins, but he can’t find the words.

"You’ll thank me later," she says, winking and kissing him, and he can taste himself on her tongue.

He groans.  Oh he could fucking kill her.

 

 


	17. For Want of Kebabs

Arya had learned long before that when it came to crunch time during exams, she couldn’t even be trusted to work in the library.  Her own room was a joke—she’d end up asleep or watching TV on her bed—but the library…the library was supposed to  be a place of focus, of mental strength and strengthening.  It wasn’t supposed to be a place where she’d stare off into space, wondering if she could read the Norvoshi on the spines in the stacks out of sheer force of will.

So she swapped rooms.  It sounded creepier than it was—calling up a friend and saying, “hey, can I use your bedroom as a study space?” but it worked like a charm.  Not her bed—so it felt wrong to nap there—and she could listen to music, or walk around and not worry about someone stealing her seat.

Usually, her go-to was Jon.  Jon never asked too many questions, and she knew where he kept the snacks in his house, so it was ideal.  But Jon was hard to get hold of these days, largely because he was constantly meeting with his students and going over papers with them.  So she made Hot Pie let her into his house while he went to the stacks, and she sat down in his room and typed for five hours.  

Five hours.  Five hours and she  _still_  wasn’t close to done, and how on  _earth_  had she thought she could finish a twenty page paper in two days?  And she  _still_  had five pages to go and god this was going to be the worst piece of shit she had ever written, wasn’t it?

Her stomach grumbled.  It was just past four in the afternoon.  Hot Pie had told her he wouldn’t be back until past nine, and she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted.  He hadn’t, however, told her that she could eat his food.

His house wasn’t too far from a decent kebab place, and it might do her good to stretch her legs.  So she got up from Hot Pie’s desk, grabbed her wallet and made her way out into the hallway.

The light was on in Gendry’s room.  She hadn’t realized anyone else was in the house and she went and pushed on his door with the intent of asking him if he wanted to join her.

It took her a full five seconds to realize exactly what she was seeing—Gendry lying on his bed, his erect cock in his hand, his eyes closed and a vein throbbing in his neck as he circled the tip of his penis with his pointer finger.

She shouldn’t have said anything at all—she really shouldn’t have.  She should have just closed the door quietly and left him be, but she was too surprised and that didn’t really occur to her and so before she could think better of it, she said “Oh.  Sorry—I…Sorry.”

Gendry’s eyes snapped open and it took him a full five seconds to realize what was happening before he twisted around and practically fell off the bed.  ”Arya!” he yelped.

"Sorry!  Sorry!"  She really should slam the door, flee down the stairs for food but she couldn’t.  She was frozen where she stood, staring at him as he fumbled and tugged his cock back into his pants where it bulged in an altogether too obvious sort of way.

"Yeah—knock next time, will you?" he snapped.  He was blushing furiously, and not looking at her at all.  

"I will.  I’m sorry.  I really am.  I’ll—I was just…kebabs."  She suddenly felt miserable.  She didn’t know why.  Maybe because she’d  _never_  get the image out of her head and so those last five pages wouldn’t be written tonight—if ever; maybe  because even kebabs wouldn’t fix this; or maybe because she had gone and ruined everything.  

That was a strange thought.  What was this “everything” she’d gone and ruined?

Gendry sighed.  ”Yeah.  Go ahead.  I’ll just stay here and sit here in my humiliation.”

"I was going to invite you."

"Yeah, I got that."

"In case you wanted a study break or something."

"I happened to be in the middle of one."

"So I saw."

He glared at her but then something in his face softened.  ”It’s really all right.  I’ll…I just need to walk it off, all right?  You’re not supposed to have the—”  he froze and his mouth jammed shut and he was blushing furiously.

"Have the what?"  She couldn’t help herself asking.

"Never mind."

"Oh."

"I—"

"Um."

"Didn’t you say you were off for kebabs?"

"Yes.  I did.  I’m off.  And you’re sure you don’t want to come?"

“ _Arya_.”

“ _I didn’t mean that way!_ ”

Gendry was groaning and had dropped back down onto the bed, his face in his pillows.  

Arya did flee this time.  She slammed the door shut and practically ran to the kebab place, thoroughly horrified with herself.  

Twenty minutes later, she was knocking on Gendry’s door.

"Yeah?" he called, and she opened it.

"I brought you a kebab as a peace offering," she said, hoping desperately he wouldn’t be annoyed at her still.

He was sitting on his bed, his computer on his lap, and he looked up at her, his jaw clenched.

"All right then," he said, and she brought it over to him before turning and making her way for the door.  "Where are you going?"

"I…I didn’t know if you’d want me—"

"Get over here.  Not a very good bloody peace offering if you’re not here to share the peace."

So she sat on the corner of his bed and the two of them bit into their kebabs in awkward silence.

"What are you working on?" she asked him, her voice sounding breathy to her own ears.  

"I wasn’t working on anything.  Can’t focus." He looked at her pointedly.

"Sorry."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Have I gone and ruined everything?" she asked.

He stopped chewing and stared at her.  ”What do you mean, ruined everything?”

"I—I don’t know."  Because she didn’t.  She just felt that she had.  And she didn’t know what that meant.  And she needed him to tell her that she hadn’t ruined everything.

He sighed and put his kebab down.  ”You couldn’t ruin everything, even if you tried, Arya.”

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Because…I dunno.  I feel like I have."

"I still don’t know what you mean."

"Neither do I."  

He halfway reached out to her—as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to put his hand on her shoulder or…or where?  Where else would he put it?

Then realization dawned.

"Gendry?"

"Yeah?"

"You weren’t…no.  No…you weren’t….were you?"

He was blushing, but his face remained neutral.  ”I don’t know what you mean.”

"You do—you  _were, weren’t you?”_   She didn’t know why but suddenly she felt elated.  You shouldn’t feel elated, finding a friend masturbating to thoughts of you—should you?  But she did.  

"I still don’t know what you—" but she cut him off with a kiss and he groaned his hands coming up to rest at her shoulder blades, his tongue tentatively playing at her lips.

"Arya—" he breathed.  He had broken the kiss, but he was still holding onto her, still holding her close and her heart was racing because she hadn’t gone and ruined everything, she knew it.   "You—"

She kissed him again, pushing her tongue into his mouth, shifting her body so that her chest was pressed more firmly against his and  _gods_  his hands felt so good as they dropped from her back to her ass, pulling her hips against his and—there was that bulge that she’d seen earlier.  The memory of it, of his dick in his hands and the look of enjoyment on his face flooded her mind, and she reached down a hand and cupped it through his sweatpants.

He groaned and twisted them so that she was lying flat on her back and he was hovering over her, their lips still connected, his hand pushing up her t-shirt and cupping her breast while she hooked her legs around his hips and rubbed her cunt against his shaft, wishing that the fabric of their pants would vanish and she could just feel his skin against hers.

"Arya?" he asked.  "Do you…?" he let the question hang in the air nervous excitement etched in his blue eyes and Arya gulped, and nodded.

Their shirts were gone in a moment, and she was unzipping her jeans while he reached for a condom from his bedstand and it wasn’t long before he was sheathed inside her and they were rocking together, hips pumping in and out and back and forth, their breath mingling together with whimpers of pleasure, their hearts beating in time as she kissed his neck, as he kissed her forehead, as his hips rolled into hers and everything was sweet and right and perfect.

Arya didn’t finish her paper that night.  She didn’t even come close.  She spent the rest of the evening in Gendry’s bed, very much not working, very much curled up in the warmth of his arms and letting time pass around them.

 

 


	18. '50s AU

Momma had always told him that if he dressed nicely, people wouldn’t look at him like he was a bastard.  She’d always said that if he played with the status quo, no one would have reason to bully him.  Keep that secret locked in tight—keep it away from people.  If you look the part, no one’ll guess, and you won’t have to tell them.

So Gendry dressed the part.  He wore button down shirts and khaki pants and even spent the money he got working weekends at the garage on one of the school letter sweaters.  He spent most of sunday nights washing his hair free of grease and making sure that his hands weren’t too dirty because if he showed up at school the next day with even the tiniest spot of dirt under his fingers, it would all be worth it.

And no one guessed.  No one knew.  No one had any idea—that he was alone in the world, that he didn’t have a dad, and that his mom had died.  No one knew at all.  Because he didn’t let them.  He went to class every day, and smiled, and pretended, because if he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself.  And every day after school, he went to the soda shop and worked behind the counter, pretending it was for pocket money rather than rent, and joking with his classmates as they come in and try to wheedle a free ice cream soda out of him.

It’s almost funny to him.  Funny, because every day after school when he walks to the soda shop, he passes greasers with their blue jeans and their oily t-shirts—sixteen-year-olds who think they know shit about cars by tinkering around with daddy’s Ford.  They don’t know anything, though.  They’ve only been tinkering.  They just like the way the cuffed blue jeans and grease stains look.  They think it proves a point—that they’re different from daddy and his Ford, and his nine-to-five and his memories of the war.  

Gendry clenches his fists and doesn’t say a word.  It doesn’t really matter, ultimately.  It doesn’t really matter, because one day, Gendry’ll go to college, and he’ll get a degree and then he won’t have to touch a car again.  He can get a job working somewhere cool, or somewhere boring, it doesn’t matter so long as he doesn’t have to count his pennies and worry about how he’ll scrounge enough for rent—and maybe make enough money to save up for a nice car—a real nice car, with seven gears and a clutch so smooth you barely feel when the gears lock in place.

He sees them on the road all the time—fancy new cars, fancier and fancier every day, with rich businessmen driving them, or maybe their wives on the way to the store, or the school to pick up their perfect children.  Maybe one day, when he has his car, his real nice car, he’ll have a wife too, and a pair of well dressed kids who don’t have to worry about who their father is, and whether they’ll eat tomorrow.

He passes one on the way home from the garage on saturday, stopped by the side of the road.  There’s a girl sitting in the front seat of the car, looking horrified, and as she twists the key in the ignition.  He hears a clunking sound.  

"Everything all right there?" he asks, stopping.  She’s younger than him—and he wonders vaguely if she even has a license yet, and he expects her to start, to blush, to bite her lip and look away because daddy told her not to talk to strangers, and certainly not to talk to boys covered in grease and wearing blue jeans that are ripped.  But she doesn’t bat an eyelash.

"I turned it off because it was making a clunky sound, and now it won’t start again."  

"Want me to take a look?"

"You know what you’re doing?"

"Sure.  I work down at Motts," he says.

She tries the key one more time, then says, “All right, then.”

He lifts the hood, and looks at the engine.  This, he thinks, is a nice car.

"Have I seen you before?" she asks.

"I dunno," he replies, reaching out and beginning to work.

"I think I have," she says.  Then her eyes widen.  "You work down at the soda shop.  You’re Gendry."

He focuses on his hands, on the warmth of the metal under his fingers as he spots the problem nice and fast.

"You work at Mott’s too?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says gruffly.  

"I wish I could," she sighs.  "No one ever lets me look at their cars though.  Jon says he would, but Jon doesn’t have a car, and Robb won’t let me near his."

Gendry glances at her.  There’s something familiar about her too, but he can’t place it.  ”Who’s Jon?” he asks.

"My brother," she says.  "I’m Arya, by the way."

Arya—the name’s familiar.  But he can’t…

"There.  Try the engine again," he says, and she gets back in the car and turns the ignition.  The car starts.

"Thanks," she beams at him.  "I owe you one."

"Don’t mention it," he says seriously, wishing he could express to her just how much that was what he wanted.  Don’t let them know—don’t tell anyone that he worked on cars.

Something about the way he says it makes her frown slightly, and she cocks her head like a dog, and he’s got it—he knows where he’s seen her.  She’s one of the ones he passes every day, dressed in jeans and leather, and t-shirts, laughing loudly about cars.  He’d never looked too closely at her before, beyond the basic curiosity that a girl would hang around with that crowd.  No wonder he hadn’t recognized her in her party dress.  It almost made him smile.  Both of them—pretending to be what the other actually was.

For a fleeting moment, he wants to ask her something—anything.  But he doesn’t know what.  

"This is a good car," he says lamely.  "Take care of it, ok?"

She nods.  ”See you at school then,” and he hears her shift gears and watches her drive off.

On monday, when he gets to his locker, he finds Arya there in a leather jacket, her hair tied back in a messy pony tail and a curious look on her face, and he finds himself blushing.  

"You saved me the other day," she says quietly.  "Dad would’ve killed me.  I meant it when I said if there was anything I could do…" She looks so earnest, her grey eyes warm, and a soft smile playing at her lips.

"There’s a semi-formal next weekend.  Want to go with me?  Unless…unless you have someone you’re going with…."  He holds his breath, hardly daring to believe he actually asked it, wondering where the question had come from in the first place.

She makes a face, and mutters something indistinct about dances, but ends it with a smile.  ”I’d love to.”

And he doesn’t care if anyone finds out the truth, because Arya knows the beginning of it all, and that smile on her face tells him she doesn’t care, and what else in the world really matters?  And he thinks about her smiling when he tells her the rest—about his mom, about his dad, about working two jobs and staying in school, and wrapping him in her arms and her warm smile, and the thought of it, the hope if it, makes everything suddenly seem perfect.


	19. "Finding Her G-Spot"

Wednesdays are different from all other days of the week because on Wednesdays, Gendry comes over, they drink a bottle of wine, take off each other’s clothes and fuck on the floor of Arya’s living room.

You could call it a tradition—something that they’d started doing when Arya was a junior in college and bored and horny and Gendry was just a phone call away on a night when her roommates were in rehearsal until two in the morning.  It’s easy, it’s fun, by now they know each other well enough to know what sorts of touches bring what kind of orgasms.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise when he curls his fingers inside of her and the world seems to glow.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that she starts gasping for air and grasping at the rug, her fingers and toes curling in and her eyes rolling back because his thumb isn’t even on her clit, but holy hell—how haven’t they found that before, because that, the way he’s thrusting his hand against her at that angle— _jesus_. 

He looks just as surprised as she feels when she’s come down from it, even as her cunt still contracts around his now still hand.  And as she props herself up on her elbows, she brings his lips down to hers and wonders whether or not she’ll be ready again tonight for him to try that again.


	20. At the Office

He really needs to get himself in control.  He really does.  Because this is just getting out of hand—on just about every conceivable level it’s getting out of hand.

For one thing, if he doesn’t stop, he should probably report himself to HR.

Not that he’s actually  _done_  anything, or  _said_ anything, and gods know that HR is not the fucking thought police but…there’s just…

A band aid.  It’s getting out of hand.  He’s filling his coffee mug up in the break room, and Arya’s taken off one shoe and is resting her bare foot on one of the chairs while she puts a band aid on her heel.  They’re new shoes—he noticed them when she came by to say hello and that she really didn’t want to get started on her expense report—and they’ve rubbed her feet raw by the looks of it, and it’s out of hand, he’s completely out of hand.

It would be one thing, he thinks when she looks up at him and asks if he can pass the neosporin, if she wanted him too.  It would be a whole different matter if he doesn’t look at her and think about her, and the way her leg is bent up and he could—no.  No no.  No no no.  You don’t think that way about a friend.  You don’t.  But he does and that’s the problem because he wants nothing more than to walk over and stand a little too close so that he fits between that bent leg and the other one and she looks up at him with laughing grey eyes and grabs his tie and brings his lips down to hers.  But instead he tosses the tube of gel to her, and hurries out of the kitchen, feeling confused and a little too hot around the collar and wishing desperately that she thought about him the way he thinks about her.


	21. A First Kiss

”Take it—you’re cold.”  Gendry’s glaring at her, and she glares right back.  He’d never used to glare at her.  Not once.  He’d laughed and smiled and they’d curled up next to one another on the riverside roads, under trees and stars—but glares and glowers had been for other people.  Not for her.

"I am not," she snaps, willing her teeth not to chatter.  It doesn’t work and he snorts humorlessly.

"Your lips are turning blue."  

"They are not," she says hotly.

"I think I would know—I’m the one that can see them, not you."  And he grabs her, tugging her close to him and wrapping a part of his cloak around her shoulder.  She wriggles away from him and shoves it off, and wishes that the winter winds didn’t strike her that much harder she’d had a brief respite in the seconds he’d shared his cloak.

"Oh for everything that’s…" he mutters under his breath, "Just take the damned help, will you?  You don’t want to freeze to death, and none of us wants you to.  Your Stark blood  _doesn’t_  keep you warm when winter has come.”

"I won’t freeze to death," she retorts.  "Nymeria will come."

Gendry rolls his eyes.  ”She hasn’t come yet, and you’ve been saying that for days.”

"She’ll come tonight," Arya insists.  She  _had_  to.  She wasn’t far, and Arya knew she wanted to, could feel it in her dreams.  

"Well, until she does," Gendry says, and his cloak is around her shoulder again and he’s pulling her close to him.  And she hates to admit it, but he’s warm, warm unlike the warmth of the fire, a richer warmth, a steadier warmth, a warmth that doesn’t fade when the wind blows too hard and the flames twist away.

"Was that so hard?" he asks.  

She tilts her head up to look at him and glares.  ”You didn’t have to grab.”

"I did, actually.  My  _Lady_  wasn’t thinking clearly and was going to freeze to death because My  _Lady_  thinks that she’s going to turn into a direwolf or something.”

"You know," Arya says slowly, her voice dropping, and Gendry tips his head a little closer to hers to hear her better, "what I think about you calling me ‘My Lady’."  And she elbows him.

"Well, you are ‘My Lady,’" he replies angrily. "You are.  That’s always been the trouble.  You’re My Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell, the Blood of the First of Men."

"So?" she demands.

"So—that’s what you are."  It stings.  It stings worse than she’s expecting, because she’s many things, and has been many more, but simply being My Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell is hardly the most important of them

"I’m far more than that."  Her voice is even more quiet, and part of her wants to shove him away and go find someone else’s cloak to sit under.  But she and Gendry have never been like that—it’s always been them, even when they were younger, even when she was a child and a mouse and scared more than she’d ever been in her life.  "You know that."

"Yes," he says quickly, "but—"

"And I’ve never once in my life thought of you as a bastard.  You’re my  _friend—_ first among anything else.  So why do you think of me as a Lady?"  

His lips part in surprise and his eyes go wide, and in the dark she can’t see the exact shade of them, but she knows what it is—has known for a long while.  And though she can’t see the exact shade of them, she can tell when his gaze drops from her eyes to her lips, and she suddenly feels heat in her neck, and her heart hammers in her chest, and she’s sure— _sure_  that she knows what’s happening next, because Blushing Bethany in Braavos told her what it looks like when a man wants to kiss you and not just because he wants you, and she had grown quiet because Bethany’s words had reminded her of the songs that Sansa used to sing about knights and ladies, and Gendry’s a knight now, she’d seen it happen and—

She grabs the front of his woolen coat and kisses him, and his lips are warm against hers.  He makes a surprised sound, but he doesn’t push her away, doesn’t laugh at her, doesn’t protest that it’s improper, or how she’s his friend—like a sister—and this isn’t what friends do.  Instead, he kisses her back, wraps his arms around her, and for a time, Arya forgets just how cold the wind and snow around them is.


	22. A Halloween Prank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [myownsuperintendant](http://myownsuperintendant.tumblr.com).

It’s not funny—not funny at all, even though she’s laughing and spraying red dyed corn syrup at him, and waving the fake knife in his face.

"You thought I was dead," she cackles delightedly, but it’s not funny at all. "I got you!" She stands on the tips of her toes and kisses the underside of his jaw as he kneels there, rigid, his jaw clenched. Only then does she seem to notice he’s not laughing, he’s not smiling, his body hasn’t slackened in relief. "It was a prank, Gendry. The trick part of ‘trick or treat.’"

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move, because the sight of her lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of her like she’d been attacked isn’t one he’s going to be able to burn from his mind at any point soon. He gets up, crosses to the sink and turns on the hot water, dipping a dish towel under the faucet, then crouches back down on the floor to wipe away the dried red of the “blood.”

"You scared me," he says quietly. The red isn’t coming away easily—it’s smudging across the linoleum. Arya bites her lip and takes the dish towel from his hand.

"Sorry," she mumbles. "I thought it would be a laugh."

He lets the dish towel fall from his hands and leans over and kisses her—not so much on the cheek as the side of her mouth. “I’m glad it was just a joke.” His voice is barely more than a whisper, barely more than a breath, but it trembles anyway.

"Me too," she says, and she wraps her arms around him, and holds him—warm, unharmed, alive.


	23. It Was Not This

"Oh, for fuck’s sake," she mutters as the light changes and they’re stuck in the middle of Park Avenue. It’s dark, and some of the buildings on the east side of the street have begun wrapping Christmas lights around the trees that line the sidewalks and, along with the streetlamps and the headlights of cabs taking businessmen home, she could see everything clearly. "You just had to tie your shoe?"

"It was untied," Gendry shrugs, jamming his hands into his pocket. He’s from DC, and thinks this is cold. Arya’s fleece is unzipped. She likes the way the cool hits her stomach.

"Yeah, but now we’re stuck."

"So?"

"So there’s literally nothing worse than being stuck in the middle of Park Avenue."

"Literally nothing?"

"Shut up."

At that moment, there is literally nothing. Literally nothing because the Christmas lights and the cool of the winter and the way she could see his breath coming out of his nose made her just all too aware that there is nothing worse—nothing worse—than being stuck in the middle of Park Avenue with Gendry. Because if they’re walking, she can’t notice how tall he is, can’t notice how broad his shoulders are, or the way he rolls his eyes when she says something he thinks is stupid. If they’re walking, she can keep walking, keep looking ahead, keep pretending that her heart doesn’t skip a beat when they have to squeeze closer together to let others pass them an his arm in its ridiculous puffy parka brushes against hers and even though it’s the parka and not the arm, it’s still Gendry.

If they’re moving, she can pretend she doesn’t want him, and god, she really does. If they’re moving she can pretend he wants her, and that—that she’s sure he doesn’t. 

"You’re right," Gendry says after a moment. "This sucks."

"See?" she says, making a wide gesture.

"It’s not literally the worst though," he says. "It just sucks not to keep moving. But even then…" his voice trails away, and she can’t tell if she’s imagining it—if the light from the trees or the lamps or the passing cars is illuminating his face in such a way that it looks like he’s blushing—or maybe he’s just cold. It is cold, after all—cold enough to see his breath puffing out of his mouth in tiny clouds, or his cheeks and nose to go pink…

"Even then?" she hears herself say and it’s breathless and she just wants the light to change and, miraculously, it does.

She starts to turn, ready to flee the tiny island in the middle of the road, to press on to things that won’t let her think of how much she wants him when he doesn’t want her, but he grabs her arm and a moment later he’s kissing her, really and truly kissing her, his tongue running over the outline of her lips and she’s too shocked to kiss him back. And he pulls away, nervously, looking up at her as though he’s not sure that she’s…

But there are stars in his eyes—not actual stars, because there aren’t stars in New York—just the reflection of the crosstown cars driving past and she pulls his lips back down to hers and she doesn’t care that they’re stuck in the middle of Park Avenue anymore. They can stay there for the rest of time for all she cares.


	24. It had started out as…he wasn’t sure what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [akosiroxy](http://akosiroxy.tumblr.com) and [ladyilliya](http://ladyilliya.tumblr.com).

It had started out as…he wasn’t sure what.  As what friends did, he supposed.  He had known she was nervous about it.  Known, because she was making all sorts of jokes, but if you caught her when she thought no one was looking, she would chew on her lip nervously and clean the dirt out from under her fingernails.  ”It’s not like anyone’d actually bid for me.  I don’t see why Sansa is insisting that I do it?” she muttered.

"Why wouldn’t anyone bid on you?" he asked.  She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything.  She didn’t have to.  He knew her well enough by now to know what she meant.  

She’d never seen herself as pretty.  Not once in all the years he’d known her.  She’d made comments about how sports had toned her legs nicely, or how she was lucky she had a good frame for the clothes she wanted to wear but…pretty?  No.  She never thought of herself that way.  And the more he thought about it, the more he realized how fucking terrifying it must be for her to put on some fancy dress her sister made her wear and stand up and wait for strangers to bid on a date with her.  Because what if no one bid?  What if she was just standing there, alone and scared until she was escorted off the stage.

So yeah.  It started off as what a friend does.  It started off as bidding for Arya because she had looked so nervous, and had even bit her lip and looked down at her hands while standing on the stage, and he couldn’t just let her stand there feeling shitty about herself.  Besides.  He’d give money to charity to make Arya feel better, even if he didn’t necessarily have the money to spend.  They didn’t have to go on a date or anything.  They could just drink and play video games or something.  

But the thing was, if it had just been that, he would have stopped bidding after someone across the room raised him by ten dollars.  If it had just been to make sure Arya didn’t feel unwanted, he would have bowed out and, when she’d complained about whoever had “bought” her for the night, he’d roll his eyes and say absolutely nothing, because what was he supposed to say?  It was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t sort of situation.

But he didn’t stop.  He stared at the guy across the dark room.  He had no idea who he was, but in that second, he hated him with every fiber of his being, and raised his hand again. 

Back and forth, back and forth they went, until Gendry got a little nervous because he was too far in now, and if he just gave up, he’d never be able to live it down, but if he kept bidding he’d have to live off beans for a month because this was shooting his food budget.  Every now and then, he’d look up at the stage and see Arya, squinting out into the crowd, trying to get a glimpse of his face through the shadows.  She was blushing now, and her hands were fisted in the skirt of her dress, and she really was very pretty in that dress.  Green was a good color on her.  She didn’t wear it frequently.  It was nice.  

When Gendry bid two hundred dollars, there was a gasp through the room, because that was the highest that anyone had bid all night.  It was enough, it seemed, and when the date was sold, Gendry got to his feet, groaning a little internally as he made his way over to the organizer to fork over the money.

"What are you doing?" he heard her ask.

"I’m paying for my date," he said.  He finished giving his credit card information, then turned to face her.  She had her arms crossed over her chest and was glowering.

"So what—it was all a joke then?" she hissed at him.

"What?"

"Fuck you, Gendry." He half expected her to march away from him, but he should have known better because of  _course_  she’d kick him in the shin first before marching away.  He let out a yelp and hobbled after her, doing his best to ignore the way that people were staring at him as the bids for Jeyne Poole rose towards a hundred dollars.

"Arya—"

She whirled, and her face was twisted and her eyes were bright and it looked like she was about to cry.

"Shut up.  I don’t want to hear it.  Who was the other bidder.  Hot Pie?" 

"I don’t know who the other bidder was," he snapped.  "I bid for you because I wanted to fucking take you out, all right?  You were having a shit time, and you weren’t going to have a good time with whoever else took you out, so I figured why not."

"Yeah—right."  She glared at him.  "How would you know I’d have a bad time?  I’m charming and delightful with strangers."

She was.  He knew that well enough.  He’d seen her laughing with people on the bus—people she’d never spoken to before in her life.  If anything, that made him gladder that she wasn’t going on a date with that stranger, who she’d be charming and delightful with and they’d laugh together and suddenly that stranger would be everywhere, because how  _wouldn’t_  he be everywhere?  

He frowned.  Frowned and thought for a moment, and if it were anyone but Arya, they would have let him think, but Arya reached up and wrapped his head with her knuckles.  ”Thanks for that,” she snapped and turned again, but this time, he grabbed her wrist.

"Arya," he said, quietly, and she paused—out of surprise, he was sure. He never got quiet when they argued.  Never.  Her eyes narrowed, warily.  "I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.  But…" he took a deep breath, "Believe it or not, I…want to go on a date with you?"

Her jaw dropped.  ”What’s gotten into you?” she asked when she could form words.

"Well…I don’t know.  But I do."

She bit her lip and peered up at him, and he saw the beginning of a flush around her neck, and god she looked good in that green dress—the flush just made it all…stick out more.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah."  He’d never felt quite so breathless in his life—as if he’d just run a marathon.

Her eyes darted between his, big and grey and warm and no longer angry.  No longer angry at all.  ”Oh.”

"Yeah."

And, very tentatively, she reached out and took his hand.


	25. Birthday Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [winginoverthings](http://winginoverthings.tumblr.com)'s birthday.

It was almost like she’d never seen him shirtless before, as if they hadn’t spent hours on the beach, as if they hadn’t gotten into water fights and she hadn’t tackled him under the waves and felt the way his body was so warm against the cool of the water.  It was almost as though they hadn’t sat in the back of Beric’s truck for hours on end, reapplying sunscreen over and over again as Tom and Anguy drove all over the cape in search of ice cream, saltwater toffee, better life jackets, someone who could fix Tom’s guitar.  It was almost as though summer had never happened at all, and she wasn’t used at all to the way his stomach rippled and his arms bulged with muscle, the way that there were thick dark curls on his chest, and—

She sighed, and wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling the stiff length of his cock through her swimsuit, loving the way it slid back and forth between her legs, between her lips, and all she had to do was hold him as close as she could while his lips were nipping at hers and his fingers were fiddling with the ties of her—there it went.  The top of her bikini was now loose, unsupportive, and he brushed the triangles that had covered her breasts down and she whimpered against him as the hair of his chest tickled her nipples.

This was new.  This was not as they had been.  They’d been children then, or close to it, happy and playful and so not like this, so not like any of this.  There had been nothing at all, hadn’t there?  Nothing in staring at him as the waves crashed over him, nothing in rubbing suntan lotion on his back and feeling just how warm his skin was, nothing in falling asleep with her head on his shoulder as shitty pop music blared out of the open windows of the truck cab.  That had been childhood, hadn’t it been?  Childhood for children who’d never known childhood?  

And now she’s lying in the truck bed and staring up at the stars and feeling so warm even though the sea breeze is blowing over them, warm, because Gendry’s hands are in her hair, warm because his fingers are rubbing circles into her scalp as her nipples rub against his chest and her cunt rubs against his cock and  _god_ , this feels right, feels good, feels perfect, because she’s not a little girl anymore, if she ever was a little girl, was she ever a little girl, or was there only here and now and them beneath the stars with the scent of salt in their noses?

She slides her hand down between them, finding the elastic of his swimsuit and pushing it down past him, finding the soft skin of his cock and pumping it as he groans into her mouth again and she feels his breath shuddering not through the skin of his chest or the air against her lips but the trembling of the hairs against her nipples and she pumps harder, pumps harder, using her feet to bring his swimsuit down until he’s completely naked above her, naked and trembling and holding onto her so tightly.  

He finds the ties at her hips and tugs them loose, pushing aside the bottom of her swimsuit and his fingers are cool and warm all at once as they probe her flesh, as they dip into her, then drag her slickness up and around and it’s her turn to tremble in his arms, her turn—

She pulls him in, pulls him in as deep as he’ll go, and she’s so full of him, so full of him she almost can’t breathe, but she knows that’s right because he’s not breathing either, he’s just barely holding himself above her, his nostrils flared and his eyes closed.  And slowly, suddenly slowly, he begins to rock his hips again, so that his cock pushes into her, then empties her, then pushes in again, and how had she not thought of this before?  How had she not?  Because this—this—this feels right, and when he opens his eyes, they are glittering like the stars overhead and she can’t really breathe—can’t really breathe at all, actually.

The slowness doesn’t last long.  It can’t, not while she knows he feels the way she does.  Faster and faster he thrusts, his breath turning to grunts, turning to moans as he pumps deeper and deeper and she brings her legs up to rest by his ribs, by his heart as her eyes fill with stars and she comes in waves that match the sound of the ocean.


	26. Nekkid in High Heels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [lookedlikeagoodidea](http://lookedlikeagoodidea.tumblr.com).

It was Bethany who had told her about this. “Best way I have ever known to get a man’s attention,” she had smirked before going into a long description of a blow job technique she had learned while backpacking through the disputed lands. “Certainly makes your intentions undeniably clear.”

And Arya wanted her intentions to be undeniably clear. She wanted him. She had worked that much out just from their video chats where she saw his face and his sleep-rumpled hair and missed the smell of him and the feeling of poking him in the side when he was being stupid.

Lanna had asked her why she just didn’t tell him that. “If you love him, let him know. I never understand the point of moping about hoping he’ll notice. I know it’s scary—telling someone that. But it’s better knowing, I promise you. One way or the other.”

Lanna was beautiful, though. Beautiful like Sansa, only her hair was flaxen where Sansa’s was a riverlands red, but she didn’t know what it was like to have a horsey face the way that Arya did. She had once asked Yna if she knew makeup tricks to make her face seem less long, and the older woman had laughed gently and brushed Arya’s hair out of her face and said, “But you have a lovely face, child. You have such beautiful bone structure.” But that wasn’t true. That had never been true.

Arya did have a good body though. That much she didn’t even bother denying. Where the gods had denied her Sansa’s beauty, they had given her a narrow frame and good proportions. Even though her breasts weren’t as big as Sansa’s, she liked them. They fit well in her hands when she cupped them and the nipples were a pleasant rosy color that she hadn’t expected.

Lanna and Yna and Bethany and the rest had all groaned whenever Arya would come into the brothel and tell them of her video chats. They said they had never heard of interactions with more unresolved sexual tension in their lives, and in their line of profession, that was something that they recognized very easily. “He  _wants_  you,” Merry said during Arya’s last few days in Braavos. “He wants you, I promise you.”

It was all she had been able to think about on the flight back to Winterfell, when she should have been categorizing her research. Because she wanted him. Wanted him so much it hurt sometimes, and felt positively pathetic admitting it. “There is nothing pathetic in loving a man,” Lanna had said. “People tell you that there is, and men would make you believe it, but love is a beautiful thing when done right. You are not wrong for thirsting for it.” She had cupped Arya’s chin, and smiled.

"But this isn’t wanting," she muttered. "Not that way. It’s—"

"I know what it is," Lanna said. "And there is nothing pathetic in wanting it. There is nothing wrong with wanting what you want, and  _taking_  what you deserve.”

She might not have done it. Might not have, but Gendry texted her while she was getting over her jet lag.  _Hey, there is something I wanted to talk to you about. Can I come round tonight?_

And she knew it. She knew what it was, knew in her gut she was right, and remembered what it was that Bethany had told her, and tore through her shoe collection, tossing boots and sneakers aside until she found the heels she’d had to wear to Sansa’s wedding, a ridiculous set of stilettos longer than Arya’s fingers.  She’d made Gendry go with her to the wedding, because she did  _not_  want to have everyone ask her why she was alone.  They’d had a nice time, and he’d looked very good in the suit he’d worn.  

She showered and shaved off the hair she’d let grow on her legs and in her armpits in Braavos, and debated shaving the dark curls between her legs before deciding to just trim them instead. Then she put on the shoes, and waited.

Gendry had had a key to her place for years at this point, from back when he had slept her couch while looking for a job up here. She’d never made him give it back, and he let himself into her apartment shrugged off his coat, called out a hello and looked around.

His eyes bugged out of his head.

"Hi," Arya said. Her voice was breathier than she wanted, and there was a blush creeping down his cheeks to his neck as he stared at her.

He didn’t say anything at all, but he wasn’t looking away, and Arya pushed away the panic in her heart, the panic that was only now saying this was a bad idea but had been silent all afternoon,

Gendry swallowed. Twice, then shook himself. “Welcome back,” he said, and his voice was gravelier than usual, and Arya grinned because he wasn’t running away from her, he wasn’t panicking, he was staring at her and his voice was growing gravelly and, yes, there was definitely a bulge in his pants. He blush deepened when he saw Arya’s eyes flicking down to look.

"I…" he cleared his throat, "well…"

"Yes?" Did she purr? She thought she might have purred. She didn’t know she could purr. It must have been something she picked up in Braavos from Merry.

"This is rather relevant to…what I…what I wanted to…"

"Talk to me about?"

"Yeah."

"I thought as much."

He gulped again, and he didn’t look so much stunned anymore as awed. His lips parted slightly, and they twitched infinitesimally up and that was all Arya needed. She strode down the hallway of the apartment towards him, prepared to kiss him senseless and—

"Fucking motherfuck!" she cursed as her ankle definitely did something it wasn’t supposed to do and she almost fell flat on the floor, catching herself on the doorknob of the bathroom, her elbow and shoulder burning with the sudden weight of her body.

"Arya!" And he was there, grabbing her by her side and lifting her away from the door, sliding himself under her armpit and letting her lean against him.

"Oh fuck."

"You all right?"

She tested weight on her ankle and it stung up at her. She could cry. Not out of pain. Out of stupid embarrassment.

"Can you stand?"

She shook her head, biting her lip and feeling so remarkably stupid. This was so like her—to go and ruin everything. She shouldn’t have worn the damn heels. She was perfectly graceful not wearing heels. She was never clumsy, but those things were death traps. She kicked them off, ignoring the sting of her her ankle.

"Come on, let’s sit you down. Can I…?" he let’s his question hang in the air.

"Well, that was rather the point, stupid," she sighed.

"Just checking," he responded. And he scooped her up and carried her down the hallway into her bedroom, depositing her gently onto her bed. But he didn’t join her. He headed towards the door.

"Where are you—?"

"I’m getting you ice so your ankle doesn’t swell up to twice it’s usual size. I am also contemplating putting those shoes down the garbage disposal because they are a menace."

He was back a few moments later, with a plastic bag full of ice wrapped in a dish towel. He set it on her ankle and the chill of it sent goosebumps up her body, and she felt her nipples tighten.

There was a pause, a beat of nothingness where neither of them said anything, and for the first time since he had let himself into her apartment, Arya felt a heat rising in her cheeks.

"Right," Gendry said at last, clearing his throat, "so, while you were away, I missed you a lot and always wished you were around, and realized I’m halfway to being in love with you." Arya’s heart skipped a beat. "So I was going to ask if you, you know, wanted to try dating. Like slowly, no pressure, just seeing if you could maybe think of me that way at all."

Arya snorted, and he grinned at her.

"So yeah?"

"You great stupid idiot, yeah. But instead of going slowly, can we maybe go a lot faster than slowly? Because honestly I don’t need convincing on that front—"

"Clearly."

"And I’d say I know you pretty well at this point so dating seems sort of a misnomer for this."

"Fair enough," he breathed and she didn’t know when he had done it, but he was suddenly very close to her, his lips hovering above hers.

When she kissed him, it was like she had forgotten how to breathe the air around her and could only breathe Gendry. He made a contented little noise in the back of his throat and a moment later he was scooting closer to her and his arms were wrapped around her, his fingers splayed across her shoulder blades, across the base of her spine and she found a way to snake her arms around his neck.

He was so warm—warm compared to her ankle which felt miles away from her head, warm compared to even the bedspread underneath her. She twisted slightly, letting her other leg, the unhurt one, dangle off the edge of the bed, and drawing him even closer, in between her legs, until both of his hands dropped to her ass and he lifted her so that she was sitting on his lap, peering down at him as she felt his cock bulging through his blue jeans.

"So is this our first date?" he asked lightly, his fingers circling at the base of her spine again, and she felt a whole new kind of goosebumps rising on her skin. His eyes were blown, she noticed, more pupil than blue, and his cheeks were flushed. She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, and he closed his eyes and his head fell back slightly. She liked the weight of it in her hands.

"Yeah. I guess. I mean, if Sansa’s wedding doesn’t count."

"That can count if you like," he shrugs, his eyes opening to slits. He leaned forward and buried his face in her neck and sucking her skin between his teeth. "God I really wanted to fuck you against a wall that night."

Arya’s breath caught. “Really?” she murmured, hardly daring to believe it. He had seemed so…on edge that night, and she had assumed he had just felt uncomfortable because Jon kept glowering at him when he danced to close to her, and she’d had to go and tell Jon to leave her friends alone.

"Yeah. You didn’t see your tits in that dress," he responded, and he reached a hand up from her back and, very tentatively, cupped one of her breasts. They both groaned, they both grinned, and he squeezed the breast again, pulling at her nipple with his thumb and forefinger and gods, she was wet, and clenching at him even while he was still wearing…

"You are far too clothed," she complained. He grinned into her neck.

"Yeah, well…" his voice trailed away and he dipped his head down to her breast and drew her nipple into his mouth and her fingers knotted in his hair, and she bit her lip because it felt too good, a sweet sensation that went from her tits to her lips, to her stomach, to her groin, and she ground onto him. He groaned. "Fuck it."

He pushed her gently off him and tugged his t-shirt over his head and she’d seen him without a shirt plenty but this was different, very different as the way that trail of hair went from his stomach down, down, down, and his muscles flexed while he curled over his belt, unclasping it before getting to his feet, toeing off his shoes and tugging his jeans off—she noticed a damp spot from her along the zipper—and letting his cock, long, thick, veined, spring free.

Arya stared at it, at him, and the enormity of what they were doing hit her full in the chest as she looked up at his face. He was watching her carefully and slowly he sat down on the bed again. “Yeah?” he asked her.

Arya bit her lip, and grinned at him. He kissed her again and she let her hands explore his chest, running through the dark springy curls that grew there, finding the soft discs of his nipples and circling them while he made contented noises in his throat. She leaned back against the pillow and pulled him down on top of her, feeling his weight, his warmth engulf her and she sighed into him.

Gendry made a distressed squeaking noise and sat up.

"What is it?" she asked, and she propped herself up on her elbows.

He was pulling away and a moment later, the cold was gone from her ankle. “This thing is freezing,” he said.

"I think I’ve iced it for long enough, anyway," she said breathily, and he laughed and deposited the ice pack on the ground next to his jeans.

"Aren’t you supposed to alternate warm and hot?" Gendry asked.

"Only if you pull a muscle, I think?"

"Oh," Gendry said and he bent to kiss her ankle, his fingers weaving through her toes in a way that she hadn’t expected to send tremors up to her cunt, but somehow, it did. "Well…" he kissed her ankle again, then a little higher up along her calf until he was at the inseam of her knee.

"Well what?" she asked. Her breath was labored now, and it was as though the line of his kisses on her leg was on fire, and her cunt was clenching, and positively drenched.

"Can’t remember," Gendry said, and he kept kissing up her thigh. "A bit," and he was hovering over her slit and oh gods, "distracted." And he licked right along the length of her, and she moaned, bucking her hips up towards him, her fingers finding his hair again, and she felt him smile against her skin.

"This ok?"

"Mmhmm," she managed, and a second later his tongue was circling her clit and everything stopped, everything in the world because nothing could exist apart from her clit and his tongue and the way his fingers were holding her legs apart.

"Arya?" and the way he said it, murmured it right into her core, so that she felt the vibrations of his voice on her made her stomach drop, "I am going to make you come now."

"Ok," she panted and, and…

And he did. With one swipe of his tongue she began to tremble and gasp, her cunt convulsing and her clit throbbing, and throbbing, and throbbing as he sucked it between his lips, his fingers tracing around her labia. She couldn’t breathe, only gasp, only moan, as her stomach muscles clenched and curled her spine away from the bed and all she could think was f _uck—oh fuck_.

Later, much later, when he was curled around her, one hand cupping her breast in his sleep, Arya grinned and thought that she needed to remember to write to Bethany and tell her that the trick with the high heels had more than worked.


	27. the damage of government property

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [misscatena](http://misscatena.tumblr.com).

> [[inspiration](http://celiatully.tumblr.com/post/104725262422/seekoutstarlight-narutowiener-ahahahahhaa-my)]

She wasn’t going to cry.  She wasn’t.  She’d done this before, he’d gone off on active duty before—and she knew he’d be back in a few months—a few months if he didn’t get blown up but he wouldn’t be, he’d promised he wouldn’t be stupid, and he had promised her he wouldn’t be stupid the last time he’d gone off and he’d been fine. She wasn’t scared of him dying, or being hurt.  Not in the way that made her want to cry.  

She didn’t like going home to their empty house and their empty bed where everything smelled like him, and every room was saturated with memories of his laughter and he wouldn’t be there until his tour was over.  She hated it—it made it all so much worse.  

She wasn’t going to cry.  She wasn’t.

But she found herself tugging on one of Gendry’s sweatshirts and breathing him in until she fell asleep, wondering if six months would feel as long this time as it did last time.

*

She got a call on Friday morning as she was preparing for work. 

"Hello?" she asked into the phone, because no one ever called this early.

"Ma’am, this is Beric Dondarrion of the fifth unit, may I speak with Arya Stark."

Arya’s heart stopped.  ”Speaking.”

"Ma’am, you are responsible for the damage of government property, and we’ll ask that you please be aware not to do it again."

She frowned.  That wasn’t…she hadn’t…she was always very careful with Gendry’s things.  She had threatened to burn his camo once, but she’d been drunk and she hadn’t meant it.  ”I don’t follow…” she said.

"There was visible damage to Sergeant Waters’ person that was not hidden by his uniform, and we will ask you not to do that again."

Visible damage?  She felt her eyes widen.  She hadn’t hurt Gendry—she would  _never_  hurt Gendry, she would hurt anyone who  _tried_  to hurt Gendry.  ”Sir, there has to be a mistake,” she began hotly, but Dondarrion was speaking again.

"That’s all, ma’am." And the line went dead.

She pulled out her phone and sent Gendry a panicked email.

_I just got a phone call from your CO.  What’s this about damage to your person?_

Two hours later, she got a reply from Gendry.

_I’m sorry to have taken a while.  I was on duty until about an hour ago, and I’ve been laughing since.  It’s the hicky, Arya.  On my neck.  My collar doesn’t cover it._

She rolled her eyes.

_Damage to government property my ass.  That’s mine and I will mark it as I see fit._


	28. when the path to dick-in-vagina got set in stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [ariannenymerosmartell](http://ariannenymerosmartell.tumblr.com).

She’s not entirely sure when it started.  Well, she can guess.  She’s not stupid.  It was probably the day that she forgot to wear a bra to class and her tshirt as a little more see-through than it should have been—only if you looked at it long enough.  And Professor Waters definitely looked at it long enough.

"Don’t call me Professor," he’d muttered to her the first time she’d unbuttoned his pants.  "I’m not a professor yet."  

He is finishing his PhD right now, and is covering for Professor Selmy, who is out for the rest of the semester with a broken hip.  And Arya is probably the only one who thinks it’s a step up, because, as good as Selmy is—and he’s very good—he’s a little old, and a little dry, and Gendry is anything but that.

She’s not entirely sure when it started, though.  Officially.  Like when the path to dick-in-vagina got set in stone.  Somewhere before midterms, she’d say, because she’d gone to his office hours in increasingly short skirts just because she knew he’d cross his legs and he never crossed his legs.  But had it been before or after the lecture on the fall of Constantinople?  When had he started looking at her like he could see her naked, and when had she started imagining giving him blow jobs behind the lectern while he talked.  Had it been her idea?  Had it been his?  She doesn’t know.  She doesn’t know if she’ll ever know.  She certainly isn’t going to ask him.

Finals are around the corner, and Gendry’s office hours are always in the late afternoon, and when Arya gets there, he’s helping Elmar with understand Viking raids, because Elmar had had the flu during that lecture, and Arya waits outside, her coat wrapped tightly around her while Gendry goes on and on and on.  He must not have seen her.  He always hurries up when he sees her outside.

Elmar leaves, and passes Arya on the way out.  ”Sorry I took so long,” he mumbles.  ”Hope he still has time for you?” He checks his cell phone.  Arya smiles at him and shrugs.  

"It’s quick," she says and she steps into Gendry’s cramped office, closing the door behind her.  "Professor Waters, I have a question for you," she says clearly.

"What can I help you with?" he says slowly, and she suppresses a grin.  He can’t tell if it’s an actual question or, you know, her showing up at the end of his office hours so they can fuck.

"When your illicit student lover shows up at your office for a quickie, do you prefer her dressed or undressed?" Arya asks, and Gendry grins.

"Well, I’ll take her how I can get her, but if I had to say I had a preference…probably undressed."

"That’s lucky," Arya says and she opens her coat and Gendry’s eyes bug out of his head.  She’s not wearing anything except her boots, and she drops the coat to the floor behind her, turning the lock in his door so they won’t be interrupted.

Gendry practically falls out of his chair adjusting the blinds as she crosses to him and perches on the desk just in front of him, spreading her legs and leaning back so that her tits are in the air.  She smiles as she hears him muttering a curse, and then his hands are at her waist, warm and sturdy.

"I hope you’ve been studying," he says, "or else I will have to fail you."  His fingers are tracing little circles on her stomach and she feels her nipples stiffen.

"Then I’d just have to retake your class, right?"

"Bright side, I suppose," he teases, and he pinches her nipple.  She moans happily as it sends a shock of something delightful right through her.  He drops his hands between her legs and runs two fingers up her slit to her clit, circling it with her own moisture.  She sighs and spreads her legs even wider for him.

She’s glad he doesn’t draw it out.  Sometimes they spend nearly an hour on foreplay and she almost misses dinner, but today she didn’t need it, today she was wet arriving because there was something so deviously erotic about walking around campus not wearing anything, on her way to fuck her professor.  He fiddles with the buckle of his belt, then stands up, dropping his pants to the ground and pushing into her with a groan.  She wraps her legs around his waist and leans forward, reaching up and running her hands along his cheeks along his neck and then holding him as tightly as she can as, together, they push into one another.  And fuck does his cock go deep into her, filling her up in just the right way, fast, and hard, and hot.  She loves the taste of his sweat as she kisses his neck, the feeling of his hands on her lower back, pulling her close to him as his hips do all they can to push her across the desk.  

His fingers find her clit and every time he pumps into her, there’s added pressure on it, and Arya can’t really breathe anymore, unless gasping out Gendry’s name counts as she comes, hard and hot, around his cock.

She holds onto him while he finishes, relishing the feeling of his cock sliding in and out of her aftershocks.  And he pulls out right as he comes and he jizzes on her stomach and she lies back, grinning as his eyes go droopy and content.  She grabs him by his tie and brings his lips down to hers.

"When you’re not my professor, we can do this in other places, yeah?" she whispers. "Because I want to tie you to my bed for a weekend or something."

Gendry grins into her lips.  ”Yeah.  But can we also still do this here?  I like doing this here.”


	29. Ten Sentences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten separate fics, one sentence each.

1\. Angst - At night, sometimes, he hears the howling of the wolves and remembers a girl who said she was one of them.

2\. AU - The first time that she calls her ”Weasel” in Gendry’s presence he looks so appalled and is so obviously going to try and take her and put her in a different home that Arya almost has to knock the pen out of his hand before explaining that the girl had  _chosen_  the nickname, and that if he took her away all the progress she’d made so far would be ruined and if he thought that was a good thing, he was more stupid than he looked.

3\. Crack - She’d never once in her life seen anyone look at a bull statue quite like that, as if he was unsure whether he wanted to steal it or pet it like a dog.

4\. Future fic - He knows it’s her before he even turns to look at her, knows it down in his bones and he could cry with relief that she’s here and not  _there_ , not married to  _that bastard_. 

5\. First Time - Septa Mordane would be furious and the thought of that makes Arya grin as she wraps her legs around his waist and finds his lips with hers.

6\. Fluff - For their first anniversary, he buys her a necklace—a cheap thing, but it has little acorns hanging off it and he knows she’ll pretend it’s stupid but she will love it.

7\. Humor - It always makes her grin, how affronted he gets when people assume she’s his little sister just because she’s smaller and they both have dark hair.

8\. Hurt/Comfort - It shouldn’t hurt him quite like this when he hears what the Freys did to Robb Stark and his mother—he’d never known them, after all—but he remembers the look on Arya’s face when she’d learned her little brothers had died and it makes him want to kill them all for hurting her.

9\. Smut - She loves the taste of him—salty, bitter, earthy—loves the feel of him—soft, strong, sturdy—but she loves the look of him best, as she looks up and sees him biting his lip, his eyes closed, his fingers clutching at the bedspread. 

10\. UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension) - She can’t tell if it had always been this way, if he’d always looked at her as though she was the only thing in the world, if she’d noticed the way his lips twitched in amusement around her—but she notices it now, notices it and whenever he looks at her she wonders if it will always be this way.


	30. "Doctor Cock" "Lord Have Mercy"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [ariannenymerosmartell](http://ariannenymerosmartell.tumblr.com).

They call him “Doctor Cock” because he apparently doesn’t notice the way he…bulges through his scrubs.  Well, bulges is the wrong word.  It implies that he’s sticking out of them in some way, that he’s aroused.  Maybe it would be better if he were.  But he’s not.  It’s more that the scrubs just…drape over his dick, leaving anyone who looks long enough—and really it only takes a quick look—with enough information to know that one, he has a massive dick and two, it hangs to the left a little bit.

When Arya had first heard some of the nurses calling him that, she was very…well…she wasn’t sure if they were making fun of him somehow.  And she’d even gone so far as to take Hot Pie aside and hiss, “That’s mean, Hot Pie.  It’s not—” before Hot Pie rolled his eyes and glanced around to make sure that no one else could hear and responded, “Look, he doesn’t care.  He gets a good laugh out of it.  He likes the attention.  I promise.  I checked.”

“Doctor Cock” is really Dr. Waters, a pediatric cardiologist who has been at the hospital for several years now.  He’s got nice blue eyes and his hair is just long enough to look tousled every morning when he arrives at work.  They usually get there around the same time, Arya getting out of Jon’s old Mitsubishi and Dr. Waters getting off a bus.  She likes watching him as he crosses the parking lot.  He’s got a nice ass too.  A very nice ass.

“You know they call you Doctor Cock, right?” Arya blurts out to him one day as they walk towards the parking lot.

“Yeah.  Hot Pie told me,” he grins, and Arya feels herself blushing.  “I mean, it could be worse.  They call Dr. Martin ‘Shitmouth’ so I figure I got off lucky.”

“Yeah…lucky,” Arya agrees, dropping her eyes and  _goddamnit_ , it she’s  _sure_  it looks like she’s checking him out.  She jerks her head back up feeling the heat rise even more in her face because whoever came up with the nickname “Doctor Cock” is right, because if you are looking anywhere between his belly-button and his knees, there’s literally no way of avoiding just how big it is.  She crosses her arms over her chest—not because it’s cold.

He’s laughing now, and she could hit him he’s being so stupid.  She hadn’t meant it that way—she’d been  _trying_  to be nice to him, and make sure that he wasn’t hurt or upset or whatever and now he thought she was checking him out.   She quickens her pace, so that she’s ahead of him now.

“They call you Mercy, by the way,” he calls after her.

“What?”

“Mercy.  I think it’s supposed to be some sort of ‘Lord have mercy’ thing.  Did you know?”

She shakes her head, then pauses.  “How’d you…why would you know what they call me?”

He shrugs and one corner of his lips quirk up.

“’Lord have mercy’?” she asks.  “Why…?”

He rolls his eyes.  “Because you’re hot, Dr. Stark.”  She gapes at him, not sure whether to believe it.  No one thinks she’s pretty.  She’s never been pretty—she’s only ever been Arya Horseface, and she’s so convinced he’s pulling her leg that she opens her mouth to berate him before stopping.  No—no, he’s definitely…he’s definitely not making fun of her.  His eyes—those big blue eyes—are gentle, and his half-smile isn’t a smirk anymore it’s just a smile.  It’s a nice smile.  And she realizes her mouth is still open and she says “Oh,” and hurries away from him.

After that, they walk together across the parking lot every day.  Sometimes he tells her funny stories about his patients—only the good stories, the kids who will be better once he’s seen to them, never the sad ones of the children he can’t help—other times he tells her about some of the idiots he sees at the gym every morning.  (That’s why his hair looks tousled.  Because he goes to the gym before work.  It helps him clear his head.)  And Arya tells him about her brothers’ woes with their girlfriends, about the her mentee through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program the city runs, about her mother and father.  He never talks about his family.  She never asks.

And almost two months to the day of when she first spoke to him, she drives him home after work.  He doesn’t live too far from her, it turns out, and he’s never had a car because he grew up in New York and never learned to drive, and she offers to car pool with him if he likes and somewhere between the hospital and his house, she ends up with his lips at her neck while she drives, and she gasps, and calls him stupid, and tells him it’s dangerous but doesn’t make him stop.  If anything, she moans a little as he keeps sucking on her neck, and when she parks in front of his house, she’s getting out of the car, too.

The minute they are inside the door, he’s kissing her again, and she’s kissing him back as he leans her against the front door and presses her into it with his body and she can feel every inch of him as her heart races and her tongue strokes his.  His hands are at her hips, and hers are toying with the hair at the nape of his neck and because scrubs don’t really contain anything, they just sort of drape, she feels the way his cock is swelling between them, and god it’s huge. 

At some point they make it into his bedroom.  Their clothes don’t, but Arya can’t feel too bad for them being left behind—they’ll make friends with one another in his hallway.  His room is very neat, and his bed is made as he topples her down onto it and she sighs as she rolls them over so that she’s straddling him, his dick riding up the crevice of her ass.

“Any STIs I should be aware of?” she asks him.

“Nope.  You?”

“All clean.”

“Good.  I have condoms in the bedside table.” 

She nods down at him, rocking her hips against his so that his cock slides up and down her ass and he groans.  “Lord have mercy.”

“Guess it was a good nickname for me, Doctor Cock.”  He grins and sits up, his lips finding the underside of her jaw while his hands fumble at his bedstand for a condom. Arya continues to rock her hips.  She reaches behind her and grabs his cock and he groans, biting lightly into her neck.

She plucks the condom from his hand and opens the foil, sliding off him halfway so she can roll it down the length of him.  Then she climbs back over him, his cock in her hand, and guides him into her, her breath more a shudder than anything else.  He fills her up—fills her more completely than she would have thought, and god he’s warm, and the skin of his chest and stomach under her hands is smooth as she begins to ride him.  She moves slowly at first, watching him watching her as she rises and falls on top of him, relishing in the alternating fullness and emptiness, the way she stretches around him and the way his cheeks are red and his eyes are hooded.  His hands are on her hips, trying to guide her to move faster, but she doesn’t let him.  She’s picking the speed, and he can only breathe and watch and trail his fingers along her abdomen, reaching them up to cup at her breasts, to pinch at her nipples in a way that sends fire streaming through her.

She wonders if he can feel it—the way that heat spreads through her, right to her cunt.  She wonders if he knows.

His fingers drop between her legs and find her clit and he begins to circle it lightly.  Too lightly.  She rocks her hips into his fingers, a little faster than she had before and she knows he’d grin at her if he weren’t moaning, moaning and pressing his fingers into her flesh, moaning and gripping her hips, guiding her towards him and god she’s warm.  Warm and it feels so good to be full of him, to have him trace patterns on her skin, to have him watching her and seeing beads of sweat begin to form on his upper lip as he begins to buck his hips underneath her, pushing deeper into her.  Deeper and deeper, and she feels muscles in her face twitching because his fingers and that depth—oh  _god_. 

She comes with a gasp and falls forward onto him, her lips against his chest, her cunt squeezing at his cock while pleasure rolls through her in wave after wave.  He comes at some point too, with a grunt, his hands kneading into her ass, and they lie there, breathing one another in for a time.

“Can we do this in the on-call room?” Arya mumbles into his chest, and he laughs.

“I have literally no problem with that.”

“Good.”  He reaches down and tilts her head up and kisses her again, smiling into her lips.

 


	31. That's not a barrel rolling around in the cellar.

It had been the perfect place—perfect because no one would see, no one even goes  _in_ to the wine cellars in the middle of the afternoon when there is lots else to be done and dinner is still hours away.  Huge and dark and empty—perfect for them to sneak off for a quick fuck because it should be kept a secret, shouldn’t it?

It is the worst kept secret, in fact, though Arya hadn’t learned that until after several weeks’ worth of sojourns into the dark oak-smelling room.  The worst kept secret—not because there was no way that a wine barrel could make quite that routine a thumping noise against the door—and that was certainly not what wine sounded like when  _it_  breathed—but because of the way that they moved together, the way that they looked at one another, the way that they just  _were_.

"Gods only know what Lord Eddard would have said," she hears Gage mutter to Ellyn one afternoon.  "He must be turning over in his grave."

"The boy’s King Robert’s get," Ellyn responds, sounding uncomfortable.

"The boy’s a blacksmith."

"He’s a knight."

"Ay, but he’s still baseborn."

"A  _king’s_  bastard.”

She didn’t think her father would have minded, though.  He’d told her once she would marry a king if she wanted, but she didn’t want a king, she wanted _Gendry_.  Gendry and the way his hard blue eyes went soft when he looked at her, and the way he moaned into her neck when he was inside her, and the way he’s warm, even though it’s springtime now and not half so cold and dark as it had been before.

She knows Bran knows (Bran knows everything), and knows that Sansa knows (Sansa learns everything), and even thinks Rickon might know (Rickon is unbelievably blind to the obvious sometimes, so that’s the one that really concerns her), and really…they could probably go to her bedroom at this point.

But she likes that wine cellar, likes that it feels like a secret even if everyone knows, even if sometimes they get old women muttering things about “young love” at them when they emerge, pink-faced and grinning.  


	32. "Comrade."

He waits in the swirling snow, staring at the tracks as though his will alone will make the train come.

_Where are you going, comrade?_

_The party is looking for Arya Eddardevna._

_She is married now. To Ramsay Roosovich. Surely the Party has a record of that._

And Gendry nods. He nods for what else can he do? He knows that it is not Arya who is wed to Bolton’s son. She had been taken by the Lannister dog, but his coat and hat had been found, blood covered, by the river. There was no sign of her. There would have been some sign, wouldn’t there?

_That is a good coat. _The Party provides for its own.__

_When it is not purging._

Gendry is not afraid of the purges. You do not fear party purges when you work for Stoneheart, for Stoneheart is colder than Siberia, and her purges make the party’s threat of gulags look like nothing.

Stoneheart likes him. Or rather, she hates him less than the others for he knew her girl. It was to him she gave the newest coat, fresh from the factory, thick and warm for a hard winter, though he did not truly have need. It was he who was given the falsified papers, though others had been part of  _her_  party longer and so should be given the mission. She trusts them less than him, though, for he knew her Arya, knew her well.

The wind bites at his face and he is glad for his mustache. A mustache, trimmed to look like Stalin’s, and not a full beard that would be too reminiscent of the dead czar’s. The blowing snow catches in it but it never stays, for Gendry’s breath always melts it.

_She would tell me how stupid it looks. That is how I will know it is truly her. She will take one look at this ridiculous mustache and tell me it is stupid._

He sees it then, a black speck against the white, with a column of white steam rising from it so different from the puffy white air of the storm. He clenches his fist around his papers, stuffed into the pocket of his fine new coat. It howls at him, like a pack of wolves as it slows with the screeching of pistons and steel resisting steel. And when the train stops in front of him, he presents them to the ticket inspector with his face smooth the way that Arya’s had been when she had pretended she was only a girl named Nan and everyone had believed her. The ticket inspector believes that he is Gendry Petrovich, though he never had a father and never had a patroynmic, and gestures him aboard with a gruff huff.

He finds his compartment and sits across from a young woman. She is pale, and her hair is shorn, or short at least, tucked beneath a headscarf of patterned blue and brown. Her face is long. Her eyes are grey. They do not seem to see him. They are staring at the snow that blows past the train’s windows.

"Comrade," he whispers to her pointedly, and the grey eyes widen.

"Gendry?"


	33. Laughing Gas

He’s got a funny blue cap on his head that matches the color of his eyes as they begin to open, and Arya grins because his pupils are so dilated that there is no way he isn’t high as balls right now.

"Whaaa?" he moans blinking and looking around.

"Hello," she says, reaching for his hand and giving it a quick squeeze. He has some sort of monitor on his finger to measure something about his blood flow. "How do you feel?"

He keeps blinking, and he licks his lips, sticking his tongue out far more than necessary to do so.

"Do you want a cracker?" she asks. Dr. Lemoncloak had said that she should try and get him to eat something fairly quickly—nothing complicated and something that would absorb his pain meds faster. And Arya keeps saltines handy these days to fight the nausea.

He nods and shakes his head at the same time, and Arya begins to laugh because it’s the sort of motion she sort of associates with flamingos, and associating Gendry with flamingos is…well…hilarious.

She puts a saltine in his hand and he takes a bite. He is staring at her like he has never seen her before and she wonders vaguely what the pain meds are making him see.

"Are you an angel?" he asks her, and she bursts out laughing.

"No. No I am not," she says. "Now eat your cracker."

"Are you a super model? You are really beautiful." Arya has been up for eighteen hours, and her hair is greasy and unkempt and she’s sure there are dark bags under her eyes.

"No," she says, trying and failing to bite back laughter. "Eat your cracker, Gendry."

He takes another bite of his saltine, chewing it slowly and staring at her.

"You single?" he asks her and her body is quivering with suppressed mirth.

"Gendry—I’m your wife."

His eyes go wide and his jaw drops. “No way! Seriously?” She nods. “Oh yes. Jackpot!”

"Eat your cracker."

"You are my wife?"

"Yes, Gendry."

"Oh man. Oh man that’s amazing!" He shoves the rest of the cracker into his mouth and, still chewing, asks, "Do we have any kids?"

Arya can’t stop laughing though and she puts another saltine in his hand. “Not yet,” she says. “Not just yet.”

"Wanna work on that?"

"When your doctor says we can."

Gendry eats a second cracker, then a third, and mutters “Married,” to himself, shaking his head in elated disbelief.


	34. No Featherbed For Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!

Arya shuddered, Arya arched, Arya cried out, letting familiar warmth radiate from Gendry’s hands into her sex and up through the rest of her. She felt herself clenching around his cock, already limp from his own pleasure, as she lost herself in her own breath and blood.  And when she was done, when he was done, she slumped forward lying her chest flat against his and burying her face in his neck while she breathed and listened to their two hearts pounding together.

Gendry wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her lightly on the shoulder, and Arya sucked the skin of his neck into her mouth. He ran a hand along her spine and she felt goose prickles erupt along her spine.  She wriggled against him, snuggled down deeper and he chuckled.

"Bedding down?"

"Yes," she said and she kissed his neck again.

He tried to twist beneath her, to dump her onto the furs she was sure, but she kissed his neck and hissed, “No.”

"No?"

"No."

"You plan to sleep on top of me?"

"You are warm and sturdy and comfortable."

"I can’t breathe, Arya."

"If you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t talk."

"Oh that’s clever," he huffed.

"I am very clever, you stupid," she said, softening the word with another kiss.

"All right, I can breathe. But not easily. You are heavy."

"I am not. And even if I were, what’s the point of all those muscles if you can’t support my weight?"

"The muscles on my stomach aren’t supposed to…" he sighed. "It’s not like carrying you or anything. it’s different."

"Of course it is."

He laughed and began to sing, pointedly, “The featherbed is deep and soft.”

They didn’t have a featherbed. Furs kept you warmer in the winter, and even if Winterfell had warmth pumping through its walls, that didn’t mean you would forgo furs in the dead of winter. But Gendry was better than any furs. Better in every possible way.

Arya snuggled into him again, holding onto him as tightly as she could and, grinning, she sang in her rough low voice that he seemed to love, “No featherbed for me.”


	35. At the Stage Door

"I swear to god Lem’s gone round the bend on this one," Gendry mutters as he digs a packet of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans.  He pops the top open and offers one to Arya.  She takes a one and flicks her lighter and inhales slowly.  

Lem  _has_  gone round the bend on this one.  He had spent the past fifteen minutes berating Tom’s music choices while Anguy watched, unsure whether to laugh or intervene.  The cast had sat on the stage, waiting for the musical director and the director to get back to business because the show was going up in two days and they’d really like to keep running through things.  

"There’s a lot of pressure on," Arya sighs.  She takes a drag on the cigarette.

"Yeah, well he’s not exactly making anything better, is he?  He’s just throwing all his stress on all the rest of us."

"So long as we’ve got the lights working properly, he can’t complain."  Arya lights Gendry’s cigarette.   "I mean, what’s the worse he can do?" She answers her own question with a groan.  "Make us change all the gels.  I just jinxed it, didn’t I?"

"Yes.  Definitely," Gendry says seriously, but he doesn’t look serious at all.  He’s grinning down at her, and Arya’s grinning back.  

It’s funny.  For all that Lem’s nerves are enough to drive anyone up the wall, and Gendry can make it worse during rehearsal because he takes Lem’s critiques personally.  Out of the lighting booth, though, out of the theater, when it’s just the two of them at the stage door as the night falls and there’s only the dull yellow light of the streetlamps and the orange glow of the ends of their cigarettes, all of that fades away and it’s just her, and Gendry—peaceful for a time.  


	36. Backstage

She had not had this problem when she’d shared a dressing room with Hot Pie. 

Well, Hot Pie wasn’t fair.  Hot Pie was like a brother.  She had not not had this problem when she’d shared a dressing room with Elmar, or with Ned.  Ned had been the  _closest_ to this problem of them all, but then she’d realized that he was a bit of a ninny, really, and liked singing in enclosed spaces and she’d shared a room with Sansa enough for that to be a problem-killer if ever there was one.

But Gendry…

He would just sort of lounge there, pouring over his script without his shirt on, without  _pants_  on, and he wore boxer- _briefs_  and  _that bulge was a real problem._ Like a  _real problem_.  

And what was worse was she was pretty sure that sometimes, when she was in just a bra, she caught him looking at her chest.  And ordinarily, she’d tell him to piss-off and keep his eyes elsewhere, but then she was  _sure_  he would call her out for practically drooling over his chest, so it was this great big game of chicken and it was a huge problem, because you were supposed to be able to  _relax_ in your dressing room, but this whole sharing an enclosed space with Gendry was just about the _opposite_  of relaxing.


	37. All The World's A Stage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because sometimes, I accidentally [self-prompt](http://celiatully.tumblr.com/post/111823706792/akosiroxy-replied-to-your-post-did-you-have-a).

If all the world’s a stage, Arya wonders sometimes where the  _backstage_  is.  She thinks about this a lot, actually.  Mostly when she’sfinishing wiping her makeup off, or watching as Denyo and Ned practice their stage fighting.  All the world’s a stage, where you’re performing your part and making others believe that you are someone you’re not, or convincing them that you  _are_  who you are through a careful sequence of events that reflect your own character development—as if you were someone in a novel, or a play—or perhaps, some greater theme that you, as the character, are unaware of.

She could pretend—and often does—that she wonders this because she’s an actor.  Because she knows what it’s like to put on a face and take it off, to fill one role, to be one person and then, the next night, to either re-be that person, or be someone entirely new.  But really she wonders it because sometimes Gendry wanders around naked backstage and she wonders  _what_  part of “all the world’s a stage” that fits into.

To be fair, Gendry’s not the only one who wanders around naked—or half-clothed.  Arya’s definitely seen Jaqen in the buff, and she herself has sat reviewing lines in only her underwear.  But Gendry’s the one she notices, and part of her wishes she didn’t, because it’s easy to brush off Ned’s nakedness when he’s naked, but she can’t brush of Gendry’s.  Can’t even begin to.

The thing about it is that it didn’t feel particularly exhibitionist (and it is hard to find a group of people more exhibitionist than a group of actors backstage).  It felt oddly…homey that Gendry would wander about with his shirt unbuttoned and wearing no pants, his cock just…just swinging about.  And the thing about it is that at this point, Arya doesn’t even feel the need to stare at it.  She doesn’t feel the need to avert her eyes.  She could just look at Gendry, walking around, reviewing his lines, or touching up his makeup or even just sitting there playing cards, naked, because sometimes Gendry was naked backstage.

She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that Gendry has a nice cock.  Like a really nice one.  Like, Arya had seen her fair share of dicks in her life, and Gendry’s is just nice.  It is big, but it isn’t just a big dick, there is something…she can’t explain it.  There are some penises that just seemed….

“Something on your mind, Stark?” Gendry asks her, and she starts.

She’d said that she doesn’t  _need_  to stare at Gendry’s dick—that she is used to it.  But it seems that isn’t enough to, you know, stop her from staring at it.

“Your dick,” she says, deciding it would be better, in this particular moment, not to lie.

“Ah,” Gendry says.  He sits down next to her.  Sometimes he crosses his legs, but not now.  He waits for her to keep going, but when she doesn’t say anything at all he prompts her, “Anything in particular about it?”

“It’s a nice dick,” she shrugs and she’s very pleased that she’s not blushing.  She’s had enough stage training to keep herself from…from…damn it, she’s blushing now because he’s gaping at her—not in outrage but in more a general surprise.

“A nice dick,” he repeats.  “What does that even mean?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to figure that out.  Which was why I was staring,” Arya says, pretending her face isn’t the color of her mother’s hair. 

“And what conclusions have you reached?”

“Shut up.”

“No, it’s a serious question.  I feel like I should know what makes my dick nice to the average woman.  You know?”

Arya glares at him and gets to her feet.  “Maybe I was mistaken.  Maybe it’s not so nice,” she snaps, and hurries away from him even as he laughs and says, “Sure.  Sure.”

* * *

 

But it is a nice dick.  That is the problem.  It is nice.  Clean.  That is part of it, Arya decides.  Too often when she sees penises, there was something a little…scrunched? About them?  Or they are a weird color.  Gendry’s is clean and smooth and circumcised.  It isn’t just about length, or thickness.  That’s what she tells herself, anyway, because if she focuses on length, or thickness, she ends up feeling very warm and needing a glass of ice water.  Maybe it is also the way that his pubic hair curls and—

“Figured it out then?” Gendry asks her, perching on a counter in front of her.  He is wearing boxers now, and Arya can’t decide if she’s grateful for that or not.  It certainly does make it seem less like he’s sitting there with his dick in her face.  

She decides it’s best to pretend that she doesn’t know what he’s on about.  “Figured what out?”

“Why my dick’s nice.”

She rolls her eyes and looks around backstage.  The other actors are bustling, getting changed, congratulating one another on a show well performed.  Hot Pie’s inviting a bunch of them out for drinks to celebrate his girlfriend’s birthday, and no one seems to have overheard that Arya thinks Gendry’s got a nice dick.

“I thought we established that it’s not,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Nah.  That was a hypothesis.  But I’m pretty sure that it’s not true.”

"How would you know?  You’re a biased source?" she demands.

"Well, the whole point was that I was getting it from  _you_.”  He reaches over and pokes her in the chest, right on her breastbone and it’s like he stung her because even after his hand has moved again she still feels his touch right there above her cleavage.  

"Yeah, and I said that I was mistaken, and it’s not so nice."

"I don’t believe you."

"You two coming?" Hot Pie calls to them and Gendry looks away from Arya.

"Yeah, in a bit.  Go on, we’ll meet you over there," he turns to look back down at Arya, smirking.  "Look, if it’s a matter of you being too  _embarrassed_  to tell me, that’s—”

"It’s clean," she snaps at him because she’d rather perform all of tomorrow’s production completely naked than let Gendry think she was  _embarrassed_  to be thinking about his penis.  ”It’s not a weird color.  It’s all neat and tidy.  That’s all.”

"Neat and tidy?" Gendry snorts.

"Yeah."

"You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe my dick that way before."

"You live and you learn," Arya grumbles.  She gets to her feet and goes to cross to where she’s ditched her crap in the dressing room she has to share with Alysanne Bulwer.  

"True enough."  She hears him get to his feet behind her, and Arya hopes against hope that he’ll be going off somewhere to finish getting dressed but—

"You know, it’s a nice compliment.  You thinking I have a nice dick, I mean."

She whirls around, expecting to find him grinning down at him, ready to tweak her nose or make fun of him even more, but his face is oddly serious and the retort that had sprung up to her lips dies. 

"Yeah well…you’re welcome."  She doesn’t know what else to say.  What else do you say when you’re alone backstage with a friend you’ve just told you think has a nice dick?  They’re standing very close together—very close, she realizes, and he’s not wearing a shirt even if he is wearing boxer shorts and she’s only half-dressed herself.  

She knows a lot about stage chemistry.  And she and Gendry have it.  It was something that she’d learned in Drama School, when everyone had always cast them opposite each other, and their various directors had jokingly shouted, “Now, kiss!” at them during rehearsal.  She’d never thought much of it because when they’d been on stage, they weren’t  _them,_ they were…they were anyone else, anyone who wasn’t Arya and Gendry.

But if all the world’s a stage, and Arya doesn’t know what backstage is at all, why is it that her heart is racing as if she’s standing under a spotlight and it’s almost intermission and the entire audience is holding it’s breath, waiting for one of them to move because there’s something electric between them?

Gendry slowly reaches a hand up and brushes a loose lock of hair out of her face and the lightest touch of his fingers send goosebumps across Arya’s body and it’s like he knows that—he probably does, but even if he doesn’t, he some how does and his hand is cupping the back of her head and his lips are dropping to hers and she’s kissed him  _hundreds_  of times before now when they are on stage but never like this because now they’re alone and they’re them.

She sighs into his mouth.  She doesn’t mean to, but she does anyway.  She just sighs and his fingers tighten in her hair and her hands come up to rest on his chest—bare, with a dusting of dark hair.  He’d had to wax it for this production and let it grow in slowly because ordinarily his chest hair was very thick, but their director thought that it was too thick for the role.  It’s soft under her fingers, and Arya traces circles into his chest as she opens her lips and feels his tongue slip slowly into her mouth—slowly, and then when she moans again, faster, more forcefully and all she can do is meet him because there’s something right about all this.

He walks her backwards so that her back is resting against the doorframe and one hand has dropped from her hair to her breast and she breaks the kiss long enough to stare into his eyes for just a moment.  His eyes are shining and darker than usual and he’s breathing heavily and she can’t help but smile at him as she leans forward and kisses his neck, feeling his pulse between her lips as he makes a noise of pleasure that vibrates through his skin.  He squeezes at her breast, and she sighs into his neck while he fiddles with the buttons of her shirt until he can pull her breasts loose from the last bits of her costume.  He takes her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and circles it, tugs at it, rolls at it, and if she’s groaning, he’s groaning too because her hands are gripping at his ass, pulling him closer to her, closer and closer as she tries to find a way to widen her stance so that that bulge between his legs can rub her through her own underpants in just the right way.  

He’s taller than her, though.  Taller and the angle doesn’t quite work, not unless she’s on the tips of her toes and she’s not wholly sure that she’d be able to balance properly.  But whatever she’s thinking, he seems to be thinking too, because he reaches down and edges her up slightly, guiding her legs around his waist so that the only things holding her up are him and the doorframe, and there it is.

She almost laughs.

So that’s what it feels like to have Gendry’s dick flush against her like that.  Even if it’s through two pairs of underpants, it’s there—large and throbbing and angled slightly to the left and almost without intending to, she bucks her hips against his and bites her lip as he moans her name into her neck.  

"Arya?"

She is too lost in the feel of it to make any sort of coherent response, and he says it again.  ”Arya?”  His grip at her hips is so tight that she wonders if it will bruise.  Part of her hopes it will.  Hopes that it will bruise, and that his lips at her neck will leave marks that she’ll have to cover with an extra thick layer of makeup tomorrow night.  ”Arya?”

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She tries to reach down between them, but she can’t.  He’s holding her too closely, and she’s pinned and wriggling against the wall, bucking her hips against him because it feels so sweet when they’re pushed together.

"You sure?"

"Oh just get on with it."

"I don’t have…"

"Pull out then."

And she feels him pull away from her, pulling away so that he can pull his dick out of his underpants, and Arya brushes aside the fabric between her legs so that it’s not covering her because like fuck is she going to let him put her down so that she can take them off when pushing them aside will do.

They both groan when he slides inside her, and for a moment, Arya is very still, relishing the way she stretches around him, how full she feels and how warm.  Her hands leave his ass for a moment and she reaches up to cup his cheeks as she kisses him slowly, pulling his lower lip between her own as he begins, very carefully, to rock back and forth inside her.  

Arya’s eyes roll back in her head for a moment because that—that was unexpected.  Not that he’d move.  That part was obviously expected.  But the way he—the way he fits.  The curve of him, maybe, or the size, or that leftward tilt—she can’t quite tell but oh.  Oh, when she’s fucked other people it hasn’t felt like this.  Not even close, not even a little bit, because as he pulls back and pushes back in he’s—it’s—it’s.  She can’t find the words for it.  She can’t even begin to.    She can barely do anything at all except breathe, and gasp as he strikes whatever he’s striking again and again, and every time he does, she’s a little warmer, a little more short of breath and she bites her lip and cries out.

It’s a different orgasm than her usual sort.  She’s well aware of that.  Different because it doesn’t roll over her slowly, it shoots right up her spine, tightening every muscle in her body as she leans forward and rests her forehead against his shoulder while he keeps driving into her.  It’s different, and unexpected, and it comes from inside her, not from fingers or tongue on her clit and she’s not—she’s never—she’s lost in the incoherence of it all, the thrill of riding  the heat pulsing through her while Gendry keeps on going.  

She’s warm and limp when he pulls out of her with a groan and she feels his sticky wetness on her thigh.  She can’t even move, can’t do anything except breathe and notice that even his sweat smells nice.  He stands like that for a moment, catching his breath before slowly unhooking her legs and guiding her back down to the floor.

"So, it’s a nice dick?" Gendry teases, and Arya rolls here eyes.

"Yes," she agrees only somewhat grudgingly.  It’s hard to begrudge him that when he’d just…when she’d just…she’d never come like that before in her life.  

He bends down and kisses her again, kisses her lightly at first before she deepens the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and sliding her tongue around his.  

So maybe all the world is a stage, but if this is what backstage is…she smiles into his lips.  Then that almost makes the whole play worth it.

* * *

They’ve gotten into the habit of staying late after the show was over.  They make stupid excuses—Arya’s running lines, or Gendry’s waiting for a bus because his car has broken down.  She’s quite confident that no one believes them, but god damn it, no one is saying anything so they have to at least pretend to be discreet.

It’s hard though.  Sometimes she finds her bra lying backstage the next day and pretends it’s not hers until no one is looking, or she’ll be lying on the floor with this malingering sensation that this—this right here—was where she and Gendry had been stretched out together, his long fingers running through her hair while he kissed her slowly and fucked her quickly.

Part of her wants the world to know.  Or at least Hot Pie, who keeps trying to set her up with one of his friends.  Another part of her wants to keep it a secret forever.  She supposes one day, they will all know, and when they do, she’ll wonder if all this secrecy will have been worth it after all, will have been worth while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coda for [fat-walda](http://fat-walda.tumblr.com).


	38. Theirs is the Snog of Ice and Fire

It’s cold, and dark, and whatever had served to keep him warm at nights before winter had come definitely didn’t serve now.  He huddled under his cloak—a cloak that had probably once been colorful like Lem’s, or Beric’s, or Thoros’, but which is now faded and muddy and  _far_  to thin for winter—much less Winter in the North with its six-foot snows.

He’s grown a beard.  It keeps the cold off his skin to some extent, but that doesn’t mean his lips aren’t freezing and chapped as his teeth chatter together and he tucks his hands into his armpits to keep his fingers from getting frostbite.

He’s heard them say the Stark words came in force this winter—that after nine years of summer, and a quick autumn, winter had not just come, it had come with a vengeance.  

He hopes that Arya’s pleased about that, wherever she is.  He hopes that she’s got a nice thick high-born fur-lined cloak and a fire and a castle and everything, and she’s not stuck here chattering and shivering with the low born warriors like him.

It’s so dark.  They never talk about how dark winter is when they talk about the North.  He remembers winter when he was just a boy in King’s Landing.  The night had fallen sooner, but never  _this_  soon, with only the briefest glimpse of daylight before the darkness hits you once again.  At least the snow reflects the moonlight…when there is moonlight.

He shivers and jumps up and down and hopes that they’ll move soon.  If they stay still they’ll all freeze to death.  But he’s not the one making the decisions.  That’s for the highborns to do.  

It’s so bloody cold and his cloak is too thin and—

“Gendry?”

He hears the call through the darkness, through the other men—a woman’s voice, or a girl’s maybe.  Lower than he remembers it, because a ten-year-old’s voice changes even if that ten-year-old’s a girl and…

“Gendry!” and she’s running towards him and it really is her, really and truly, he’d recognize that long face anywhere, even if her hair’s grown out a bit and is braided.  She’s running towards him and she’s got a thick, fur-lined cloak and even in the darkness he sees her in the light of the moon reflected up from the snow and she’s smiling—truly smiling to see him and—

He doesn’t mean to.  He really doesn’t.  It would never be proper, and she’s a lady, even if he is a knight now, but when she throws herself into his arms he kisses her and her lips are so  _warm_  against his, warm like  _fire_  and she makes a squeak of what he hopes is pleasure as she kisses him back.  And now he doesn’t care that his cloak’s too thin.  His blood is pumping hard through his body and Arya’s here, Arya’s alive and kissing him back in the middle of everything and everyone.

He smiles when she breaks the kiss, smiles down at her.  She’s taller now, and less scrawny and he wishes he didn’t notice the way her chest swelled out a bit.  She stamps on his foot.

“Ow!” he yelps.

“That’s for leaving me,” she snaps.  Then she stamps on it again.  “And that’s for being stupid.”  Then she reaches up and grabs his collar, and brings his lips to hers again.


	39. a surrealist drabble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Imagine your otp as an incessant humming noise with a source you can’t place."

you’re alone, and it’s snowing.  it’s funny watching the snow fall.  it’s like stars falling, only smaller, and by day, and less shiny, but until that moment where they hit your face, you can imagine.

you’re alone, and it’s snowing.  it’s quiet outside, but you sometimes hear the crackle of branches, the rustle of the wind and something else.

it’s like a wolf howling.  that’s hardly surprising.  it’s snowing. it’s cold. you’re alone, why wouldn’t you imagine a wolf howling?  except it’s not a wolf.  there are no wolves in these parts, and you’re not  _that_  far away from everything else.  but you hear it and it’s not quite howling, but it is howling, just outside your ears.

maybe it’s that your ears are numb.  maybe you should have worn a hat, or at least some earmuffs.  but you didn’t and you think you hear—

it’s long and drawn out, not quite like a howling wolf, but somehow also short, and sharp, and jagged, like a hammer striking an anvil.  it’s both.  and neither.  and one.  and the other.  and you’re sure you’re not imagining it, but you also might just be imagining it.

it sounds almost like a train—a blast of a whistle overlying the methodical motions of the pistons running metal wheels along a metal track, but there are no trains near here, no train tracks that run through this wood.

it sounds like jumping on a trampoline that has rusty springs, though there are no trampolines in back yards at this time of year.

and you grin because it doesn’t sound like a trampoline.  it sounds like sex on an old bedframe.

that’s exactly what it sounds like.


	40. Hunger Games AU

”Come on.  Win, damn you.   _Live_.”

He wants her to win.  Wants her to live.  Even if living is unbearable, even if it means drowning in cold sweat for the rest of your life. 

In his darkest moments, he wishes he hadn’t lived.  He wishes he’d gone for the cornucopia and just let himself get offed right then because having to remember the rest—the ones he’s killed, the ones who almost got him—having to wake up shaking, locking his door at night even though he knows,  _knows_  that no one’s coming through it…

And what’s worse is he remembers the faces of the rest of them: of Lommy Greenhands, a scrawny boy who’d not lasted past a broken leg, and Hot Pie who ran too slowly, and Ned Dayne who was nice, if snotty… he remembers them all and they’re all dead.

But Arya’s not dead yet and he wants her to  _live_.  

There’s something about her.  She’s personable, charming, friendly.  The capital loves her in a way they never loved Gendry.  They want her to win in a way they never wanted Gendry to win.  But she’s not out for blood the way the careers are.  But she’s sitting there, looking after little Weasel who’s twelfth birthday had been the day of her first—and only—reaping, and telling stories about climbing trees with her brothers and playing with her dog and it’s hard to imagine her as the girl who’d dropped a hornet’s nest on Joffrey’s head that had sent him running but it definitely is…He wants her to win.  

He wants her to win because watching her almost makes him forget that he’s watching the Hunger Games again, that he’s reliving it with them as they fight.  

He wants her to smile as she tells Weasel a story because when she tells Weasel that story, she’s telling them all that story and for a moment, Gendry can forget he was ever in the arena.


	41. Dancing in the Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [otpprompts](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/118406414887/imagine-your-otp-dancing-in-the-moonlight): Imagine your OTP dancing in the moonlight.

Arya’s always loved the night time.  There’s something so soothing about the comfort of the stars overhead, and the moon ebbing and flowing as it has for millions of years and how it will for a million more.  It’s something that’s hard to explain.  People understand the concept of “day birds” and “night owls” and god only knows that everyone laughs when Arya rolls out of bed and needs about four shots of espresso injected directly into her veins before she even begins to be functional.  Maybe it’s because she loves the night so much, the chirping of crickets, the way the wind rustles in the trees and the world is silent and still and cool.

She’s used to being alone at night.  It’s hard not to be.  Night isn’t so much a time for people, not the way the day is.  It’s strange, for example, to go through town on your own at night.  Not dangerous–it’s a snoozy small town, really.  But you get funny looks and people wondering if you’re high, drunk, or planning some sort of crime.  So Arya spends late nights on the roof of the house, staring at the stars and listening.  Sometimes she hears the odd car, but for the most part it’s just the sounds of the night, the sounds of nature, or of her father’s snores through his open bedroom window.

But not tonight.

Tonight, she hears music.

* * *

She starts hearing it every night, always beginning at about one thirty in the morning, and going on until about three.  It’s someone with a guitar, sitting on a porch.  It’s not very good music, she realizes.  Or at least, he’s not very good at the guitar yet.  She watches him from the roof like a cat.  He plays easy songs for a little while, then practices newer, harder ones, fingers sliding on frets as he feels the music as much as listens to it.  She sees him grimace a few times when he’s wrong, and wonders if he’s teaching himself, or if he’s taking lessons.  He’s clearly new to the guitar.

After a week, she asks him.  She climbs off the roof, letting herself drop to the ground from the top of the porch, knowing her mother would screech if she saw her because her mother’s afraid of anyone falling since Bran.  But Arya lands just fine–she’s danced for years and knows how to land from a controlled fall, especially a short one.  She crosses the street as quiet as a shadow and waits until he’s finished his verse, then claps quietly.  He looks at her, surprised.

“You’re good!” she grins at him, and he blushes.

He shakes his head.  “Not really.”

“You taking lessons?” she asks him.

“Yeah.  From one of my housemates.  Now’s the only time I can practice without them taking the piss.”

“Well, you’re making progress,” she grins.  “I’m Arya.”

“Gendry.”

And that’s it.

* * *

She comes and listens to him after that.  He doesn’t seem to mind, and no one else seems to like late nights this way–not the way Arya does.  She sits on his porch with him and stretches, feeling the aching of her muscles fall away.  

“You’re flexible,” he comments one night.

“I dance,” she shrugs.

“Do you?” 

“Yep.”

“You in college?”

“Yeah.  But I live at home.  You in school?”

He shakes his head and chuckles.  “I’m glad I look that young.”  He grins at her.  “Nah.  I’m a chiropractor.”

“Here to fix all my aches and pains?” she teases.

“Only if you don’t stretch properly,” he says, “Which you do.”

She smiles, and he picks up the guitar again.  She notices his fingers this time.  They’re long, and quite deft, and she imagines him cracking bones with them quite easily.  They arch well over the neck of the guitar.

* * *

She finds herself dancing one night while he plays.  It’s not anything big or exciting, just sort of tapping her feet and shimmying along his porch.  She moves her arms precisely, bends into a plie, pops up onto one leg.  Silly improvisations.  And Gendry grins at her as she does it, but he also blushes a bit, as though he can’t fathom why anyone would dance to anything he plays.

* * *

It’s not exactly a pattern that they fall into.  A pattern feels like the wrong word.  It’s more choreography, really–Arya waiting on the roof and jumping down when Gendry comes out to play and dancing or stretching while he plays.  Arya just closes her eyes and listens.

The music fits with the creaking of crickets.  The strumming of the guitar rolls into the wind that rustles the leaves overhead.  And she can’t see the stars anymore, not from the porch with its dull yellow light that attracts every mosquito on the planet, but she does see sparkling in Gendry’s eyes when she looks over at him.  He watches her move, and forgets his fingers a little and the music is better because he’s not tense about it.

Part of her wishes he would dance with her.  She wonders what he’s like when he dances.  He’s big, and muscular, and his fingers are graceful on the neck of the guitar, but that’s not an indication of whether or not someone is a good dancer.  She’s seen him move sometimes.  Now that she knows he’s here, it’s hard to miss him coming out of his house during the day, looking grumpy and tired.  He certainly seems like he might be a good dancer.  He has a presence when he moves.  But if he were to dance with her, then he wouldn’t play his guitar and they’d be dancing in silence, and she doesn’t know if she wants that.

* * *

They don’t dance in silence.  When Gendry does put the guitar aside and stands and leans against the porch railing watching her, Arya remembers how musical the night is–the gulping of frogs, the buzzing of bugs, the wind and the river and never-silent crickets.  It’s not silent at all.  It’s musical, and Arya takes his hand and pulls him towards her.  For a wild second, she thinks he’ll kiss her.  She wouldn’t mind that at all, she realizes, but perhaps not right now.  Right now, she wants him to move with her, to dance to the music of the moonlight and the yellow porch light and the light of his eyes when he smiles at her.


	42. Spin the Bottle

It’s just a game of spin the bottle. It’s just a game.  It’s Arya and Lyanna and Alysanne and Obella, and some others who Gendry’s never met, and him, and Hot Pie, and Lommy, and Ned Dayne, and some friends of one of the people he’s never met.  

It’s just a game of spin the bottle, and they all take turns.  Lyanna kisses Hot Pie, Lommy kisses Obella, and it goes on and on and on until it’s his turn.  

He’s the sort with shite luck.  The sort who never gets what he deserves.  He shouldn’t even be here–he’s too old for all of them, but that’s what happens when you have to work your way to paying college tuition because you’ve got nothing to your name.  With his luck, the bottle’ll spin to Ned and then he’ll have to kiss him, and it’s not the  _he_  so much as the  _him_  because Ned Dayne is bloody annoying.

He watches as it spins, watches as it turns and it slows and when it stops it’s pointing at Arya.  He gets to his knees and she flushes and does the same and a moment later, he’s kissing her, and his stomach is doing all sorts of bizarre knot things that it’s never done before and it’s like the whole room has gone still around him, and he’s not the type to think ridiculous things like “this is magical,” but he doesn’t know if anything could possibly make this moment better.

And then, Arya slips her tongue between his lips.


	43. "You didn't have to punch him."

‎”You did not have to punch him,” he snaps and Arya winces as he hands her a bag of frozen peas that she puts over her swollen eye.

“I did, actually.”

“What—did the honor of your house rest in your hands? Was the name of House Stark so besmirched that you had to go punch that narrow-minded, two-timing, son-of-a—”

“Looks like you don’t think too highly of him either. Methinks you doth protest too much.”

“Arya, he is a foot taller than you and heavier than I am. Why did you—”

“He was talking shit about Jon,” she snaps. That gets Gendry to shut up. That would get anyone to shut up.   _I will not cry,_ she thinks forcefully, chewing on her lip.  _I will not. Jon wouldn’t want me to cry._

Gendry sits down next to her on the bed, and wraps an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her to him. “He’ll be all right,” he says stiffly.  

“How do you know? He’s been under for  _weeks_  now.” No one knows if he would wake up, and Arya hates that. She hates it. So sure, she had punched Sandor Clegane in the face, and he’d knocked her into the bar before Gendry had dragged her off. Just because he has a shite brother doesn’t mean that Arya’s was shite and Jon…

She wriggles out of Gendry’s arm and lies down on the bed, moving the peas slightly so that she doesn’t have to hold them to her face anymore. For a minute, Gendry sits there silently. Then he rests his hand gingerly on her knee.  

"Still stupid to punch Sandor Clegane,” he mutters.

“Yeah? Well what if I wanted distraction from the fact that my brother’s been on death’s door for a month now and no one knows why.”

“There are ways to distract yourself without getting a black eye,” Gendry says dryly.

“I know that, stupid,” Arya snorts.  “But that option presented itself quite nicely.  It’s not like the others were really there.”

She senses, rather than sees, Gendry roll his eyes.  She kicks him and he yelps.  “What was that for?”

“For being stupid,” she responds.

“Stupid?  I’m being stupid?  I’d like to point out that I’m not the one with the black eye right now.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not stupid.”

“Cleverer than you are.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well, if you’re so bloody clever, why didn’t you think of a better way to distract you than taking me to a bar where I’d see Sandor bloody Clegane?”

“The bar was part of the plan,” Gendry says, and she hears him roll his eyes again.

“What plan?”

“The plan.”

“What plan?”

“You know…the plan.”

Arya removes the frozen peas from her eyes and sits up.  She narrows her eyes, then winces, because the left one’s swollen and stinging.

“Were you trying to chat me up, Gendry Waters?” she demands.

Gendry takes a deep breath.  “I had a plan.  Alcohol was involved, but not too much.  Just enough.  That maybe you wouldn’t jump down my throat.”

Arya snorts.  “Or that I would?” 

Gendry gapes at her for just a second.  “Yeah–all right.  Or that you would.”

She looks at him again, trying to imagine kissing him.  He’s fit.  He’s always been fit.  And he’s not bad to look at–especially now that he’s growing that beard, which some how makes him look more…look more…she’s not sure.  More something.  His arms are quite nice too–muscular and the like.  And his hands.  They’re big.  Very big, actually.  And they look strong.  And she closes her eyes for a second, doing her best to block out the idea of them twined through her hair.

“Well, come on then,” she sighs, and leans forward, grabbing the front of his t-shirt and pulling his lips to hers.  They connect and he lets out a surprised noise and Arya gasps because suddenly the room is very warm.  Very very warm.  And it had been cold just a second before because of the frozen peas.  

And there they are, those hands of his, running up her sides and cupping her face and just holding her gently while she focuses on breathing.  Focuses, because somehow, she seems to have forgotten.  

He certainly is a distraction.  And certainly a less painful one than that bar connecting with her eye.  His lips are soft and warm on her throat, on her chest, on her stomach as he pushes her t-shirt up.  His fingertips are callused from work, but the calluses feel good against her tits, against her spine, against her cheek.  She loves the feel of him between her legs, his cock stiff through both their jeans and the way their hips move together and she feels warmth pooling in her stomach.  

His hands are everywhere, on her breasts, in her hair, on her hips, slipping down the front of her pants to rub against her clit.  His hands are everywhere and Arya lets her head fall back as he slips a finger inside her, his lips sucking different bruises into her neck.  And she sighs, and arches, and wriggles against him, spreading her legs as wide as she can so it’s easier for him to reach her. 

He kisses his way down her stomach, kisses his way down her thigh as he slides her jeans down her legs, and kisses his way back up until he’s between her legs, breathing against her underwear, looking up at her.  

“This ok?” he asks her, running a finger along the elastic at the seam of her leg.

“Yeah.  Go on then,” she says, and her breath hitches as he tugs the cotton away and his hands that are everywhere and his lips that are everywhere are everywhere together, two fingers spreading her slit open and sliding in while his tongue traces circles onto her clit.  

She comes hard, and fast and grabs at his hair to hold him there while she rubs herself against his face.  And when she’s finished, she lies there, letting the world still around her and feeling the warmth of Gendry’s breath on her stomach.


	44. Stretch Marks

He likes to kiss her along the stretch marks that trace themselves across her swollen stomach. He likes them, these white tendrils. They are good marks, he thinks—better than the scars on her hands and arms and back. These are right.

Sometimes he feels a little kick of their baby through her skin, through his lips. A little nudge that always makes Arya huff and wriggle deeper into the furs, and he’s always sure to kiss the kick as well. He’d kiss every inch of her—has kissed every inch of her, will do so again—but this kiss isn’t just for Arya. 

The men of Winterfell tell him he should pray for a son, that if the Lord of Light is good she’ll give him a boy as strong as a bull and quick as a wolf. They tell him that it’s a good thing, to watch your own son grow to walk, and run, to lift his first sword, and swing it. 

Gendry wants a girl though—a girl with grey eyes and a long face who smiles at the sight of him and is her mother writ small.


	45. “He only ever smiles when you’re around.”

“He only ever smiles when  _you’re_  around.”

It’s a simple enough observation when it falls from Bran’s lips, but it’s devastating.  

Gendry’s got a lovely smile, really.  It makes his eyes light up in his face, blue eyes that always seem to match the sky.  He’s always smiling when they’re together, lips twisting wryly, or a grin that reveals white teeth.  He snorts with amusement, and laughs so hard that soda comes out his nose if she’s said something funny while he’s drinking.  

And he only really smiles when she’s around.  He’s surly and serious with everyone else, and Arya knows that he can be a gruff bastard sometimes, but she also knows that he’s warm, and that sometimes he rubs his jaw with a large hand to hide his laughter on days when it’s just the two of them and no one else.  

He doesn’t do that for anyone else.

Arya doesn’t know what to do with that.  Because it’s not the sort of thing you can un-notice.  You can’t just erase the memory of Bran saying “He only ever smiles when  _you’re_  around,” from every moment that Gendry smiles.  


	46. Star Trek AU

arya leads the away team down to harrenhal.  she doesn’t like it.  not the leading bit.  she likes that.  or even the away team bit.  she doesn’t mind being off the ship for a little while.  she minds the sunshine.  

it’s strange how quickly you get used to artificial light and nothing but stars and planets as far as the eye can see, the blackness of space, the velvety blue just on the other side of the reinforced glass.  arya likes the stars.  she always has.  ever since her navigation classes at the academy when she got top marks, every time, because navigating by stars is more than just navigating by north and south.  it’s all sorts of complicated vectors and arya always did love calculating.

she likes the solid ground beneath her feet, she supposes.  you get used to a rumble under your feet–so used to it that you hardly notice it anymore.  but it becomes obvious when there’s rock and mud and water and solid planet for miles and miles underneath you.

she’s only taken two redshirts with her.  gendry and hot pie.  hot pie’s a bit jumpy.  he’s newly graduated and the enterprise is his first assignment.  gendry’s steady, though gruff.  arya’s been on an away team with gendry before.  he’s the sort of red shirt that jokes about being a red shirt, that knows that being a red shirt means he’ll die before blue or yellow.  he pretends not to begrudge arya her yellow uniform, and arya pretends not to hear his comments about how all redshirts are doomed.

she doesn’t like thinking about gendry dying.  she doesn’t like thinking about any of her men dying.  she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if they died under her command.  it means she takes her steps first, and keeps her senses keen and hopes that they aren’t too numbed from being in space the whole time.  

sometimes she catches gendry looking at her, watching her, and when she steps first, he follows quickly, ready to catch her if she falls.


	47. they let her go in the end--lady brienne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For imjustasmith.

they let her go in the end–the lady brienne.  they let her go because mother merciless wants her golden lannister dead.  and if lady brienne can bring him back her head, then she might be worthy of hunting down arya, from wherever it is that the hound had taken her.

 _she’s escaped_ , gendry thinks.   _i know she has_.  

she’d escaped harrenhal, and had escaped the brotherhood.  she’d been at the red wedding and had escaped, and now the hound was…was somewhere.  dead if lady brienne was to be believed.   _good riddance._

he’s never known someone quite so capable of  _surviving_  as arya.  she had a sixth sense to her, of knowing who was trouble and who wasn’t.   _she knew that lord bolton was trouble even at harrenhal, though she could have revealed herself to him and been taken to her brother robb._

that would have ended with her dead, or captive.

and now…

there’s something about lady brienne.  the rest of his brothers don’t trust her as far as they can spit, but she’d been….she’d….there’s something about her that rings true.  the same way that arya had.  

so he hopes she kills her lannister.  because if anyone can find arya, and keep her safe, he thinks it might just be her.


	48. it's a pretty name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For imjustasmith.

he takes one look at her and groans because she’s going to get into so much trouble here.  he can just tell.  it’s not his first time in lockup, and it’s not his first time with a girl who’s clearly from the northside of the tracks.  she’ll be crying and begging for her father to come bail her out in less than half an hour, and that’s if the assholes down the row take a little while to notice her.

he’s not a gentleman.  never has been.  he’s spent his fair share of time with girls who tell him that chivalry should be dead because it’s fucking gross. but all the same, he sits down next to her because he’s the least of her worries in here.

“don’t try it,” she says, and her voice is dark.

“try what?” he asks, surprised.

“saying that you’ll keep me safe or whatever.  i can take care of myself.”  in that short dress, he’s not sure she can, but he’ll at least pretend to– “and don’t you go pretending that you’re taking me seriously.  i’m your worst nightmare, trust me.”  he watches her.  her eyes are dark, and her mascara’s running a bit, and he’s pretty sure that she is doing that thing small dogs do where they bark a lot and loudly to make you scared of them.  she’s certainly small.  smaller than him.  everyone’s smaller than him.

“fine,” he says.  “i’ll just sit then.”

and he does.  he ignores her, or makes a show of it, anyway.  he does keep an eye on the guys down the line and they think that the two of them are together and piss off, because he’s big and they don’t want to start shit.  

“who’s bailing you?” he asks her after a while.

“my brother,” she says, grudgingly.  he nods.

“you?”

he’s not sure.  he’d left a message with willow and jeyne, but who knows if they were even still awake.  “cousins,” he lies.  her eyes narrow slightly, as if she, like a small dog, or a normal sized dog, could smell the lie.  “dunno.  left a message with some mates.  hope they’ll be along.”

“arya stark?” calls one of the cops, and she–arya–gets to her feet.

“good luck,” she says.

“thanks,” he hears himself saying.  

 _arya stark_ , he thinks.  

it’s a pretty name.


	49. "what are you doing here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anidlebrain.

when she was very little, she and bran had climbed this tree together.  bran had told her it was easy, that there was no reason she  _shouldn’t_  climb it, and that had been all it had taken.  two minutes of wriggling and then she was up on the branch sitting next to him.

it takes her less than two minutes now.  she is bigger, and the way up was familiar now.  and even if the wind is so cold she feels her face grow numb, she doesn’t care.  when she’s in this tree, for a moment, she can forget that everything’s wrong, that the world is gone, and it’s just her and memories of laughter and summer snows and father and mother and robb still alive…

when she pulls herself onto the branch at last she almost falls out of the tree.  gendry’s sitting there, all beardy and mittened.  snow peppers his furs, and his beard.

“what are you doing here?” she demands.

“sitting.  what are  _you_  doing here.”

“sitting.”  she gapes at him.  

“right then,” gendry shrugs.  he scoots down the tree’s branch.

“you’ll fall,” she points out.

“will not,” he says.  

“the branch will break.  you’re heavy.”  he is.  tall and muscled.  “you’ll land right on your ass and break it.”

he snorts.   “doubt that.  the snow’s too thick.”

arya chews her lip, then settles against the tree’s trunk.  “well, i don’t believe you.”

he rolls his eyes.  “look if you’re fussed, find your own tree.”

“this is my tree,” arya snaps.  “i’ve been climbing this since i was nine.”

that makes gendry smile.  “you were always good at climbing trees.”

she rolls her eyes.  “yes.  so heed me.  come closer to the trunk, will you?”

he scoots back towards her, and his leg brushes her.  she doesn’t mind gendry being there when she wants to be alone.  gendry’s different from everyone else.  besides.  it is freezing and he is warm.


	50. Nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For fat-walda.

“what happened to your hand?” arya asks him. 

“punched an moron but he ducked and i broke a window.”

“nice.” 

“what happened to your foot?”

“motorcycle rode over it as some idiots were fleeing.”

“nice.”


	51. Fight Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> [ohsebs](http://ohsebs.tumblr.com/post/121131280793/ohsebs-ohsebs-my-nurse-just-came-in-to-check):
>
>> [ohsebs](http://ohsebs.tumblr.com/post/121055548428/ohsebs-my-nurse-just-came-in-to-check-my-vitals):
>>
>>> [ohsebs](http://ohsebs.tumblr.com/post/120985882378/my-nurse-just-came-in-to-check-my-vitals-and-i):
>>>
>>>> my nurse just came in to check my vitals and I told him to fight me from beneath a mountain pillows. He just moved my pillows and told me maybe later.
>>> 
>>> he just came in again and when I tried to tell him to fight me again I started coughing and I couldn’t breathe and then then he just smiled and told he won’t fight me because he knows I’d win
>> 
>> Apparently I seduced him with my drool and terrible lungs because he wrote his number on a coffee from the giftshop under “fight me?”

He’s shorter than Arya remembers him being.  Maybe because she’s not lying down unable to breathe from all the gunk in her lungs.  

“So…about that fight…” she says, trying to pull up a good amount of bravado into her voice.

They don’t really end up fighting, though.  They argue some–through most of the movie, actually, and someone behind them actually throws popcorn at them–and Arya does thwack him for having stupid opinions about Godzilla. 

When he says goodnight to her, he still hasn’t kissed her and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Are you going to kiss me, then?” she demands, hands on her hips.

“I dunno,” he responds, shrugging.  “I don’t get the impression that that’s part of fighting.”

“Fight me,” she mutters, and drags his lips down to hers.


	52. Chicken AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame anidlebrain.

she awakens to his crowing every morning, the sweet sound of his song to greet the sky, knowing that once again, the light chases the dark away.  

arya shifts in the nest, feeling the heartbeats of her little flock pattering beneath her breast.   _flock,_ she thinks happily.  she found it in the end.  she made it.   _the lone chicken dies, but the flock survives._

through the coop window.  she cannot see him, not yet.  he is saluting the lord of light, that great ball of brightness in the sky.  but she knows he will be back, and when he is back, they will only need wait a few minutes before feed is brought to them, and she will rise from the nest and nudge her sweet chicks from their slumber that they might eat as well.

she’d never thought of herself as a mother hen before.  she didn’t know what she’d thought she was.  she hadn’t had the chance.  there was nothing like being out in the world alone, without a coop, with no way of finding your coop, to make a little chick feel too small, though she tried so hard to be as brave and daring a chick as she could possibly be.

gendry struts in through the coop’s opening.  arya gets to her feet, fluffing her feathers slightly as they have grown stiff while she slept.  her three chicks roll about, fluffing as well, and blinking blearily at her, their small eyes gleaming drowsily.   _come, my chicks_ , she thinks.   _we must feed._

gendry comes back into the coop and he helps her nudge the chicks to their feet.  they hear the great feeder come out to the yard and the sprinkle of feed on the ground.  when the great feeder approaches the chicks, gendry puffs out his chest and makes a loud cluck, telling the great feeder to keep distant.  _he’s strong_ , arya thinks happily as she bends her beak to the ground and begins to eat.


	53. Dating someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For akosiroxy.

It’s Robb’s idea, a way of getting one of his potential business partners of his back.  “He’s a nice guy, Elmar.  Just one date, Arya.  That’s all.  You don’t have to like him, or see him again.”

He’s not that bad.  But he’s the sort of guy who always talks and talks and talks, and doesn’t let you get a word in edge-wise.  It’s not really a conversation–it’s a five-paragraph-essay written and read by Elmar Fray.  So Arya sits back, and drinks her wine, and listens, and resolves never to go on a second date with him.   _I need someone I can talk to_ , she thinks to herself.   _Elmar’s nice, but he’s not for me._

She does her best to pay attention.  She really does.  She should be interested, really.  He’s talking about the economic crisis, after all, and Arya’s all about economics.  But she keeps finding her attention drifting to the next table.

“Look, it’s not…it’s not you.  I really isn’t, Gendry.”

“Yeah?”

“I promise.  I’m just–there’s a lot going on, and Willow’s moving to town and I need to get her settled and–”

“That’s a crap excuse and you know it.”

“Gendry–”

“No, it is.  Tell me you just don’t want me anymore.  Don’t lie to my face, Jeyne.”

Arya can’t see his face.  His back’s to her, but she can hear the pain in his voice, boiling beneath the anger.  She  _can_  see Jeyne’s face and it’s full of sadness too.   _There’s no good way to break up with someone_ , Jon had once told her.  He’d been drunk, and had just broken things off with Ygritte.   _Especially if you still like them, but it just doesn’t fit anymore.  That almost hurts worse._ She can see plainly that Jeyne still likes Gendry.  She just doesn’t love him anymore.

“And then, of course, the central bank down in Oldtown kept having staffing changes and wasn’t even able to  _settle_  itself,” Elmar was saying, and it wasn’t so much that he was speaking quietly as that Gendry’s voice just…it intrigued her more.

“So that’s it, then?”

She sees Jeyne close her eyes, remorse written on her face.  She nods.

“Well,” Arya sees Gendry raise his glass of wine in one big hand.  “Here’s to five years, then,” and he downs it.

“Arya?”

“Yes?”  She flushes.  She hadn’t heard Elmar’s question.

“I said, do you think that Baratheon’s doing a good job with the deficit reduction?”

She frowns.  She’d missed  _that_  connection in his five-paragraph-essay, and thinks quickly.  “He’s doing all right, I suppose.  I mean, as best he can, given how the Senate is against him on everything he tries.”

“Of course–the vestiges of the Lannister regime, always putting roadblocks in his administration.”  And he’s off again, this time about the central government.

The food comes, and she finishes long before he does, and at the table next to them, Jeyne has already left, but Gendry’s sitting there drinking by himself.   _Poor man,_  she thinks.

“Do you mind?” she hears Elmar ask and her attention whips back to him, panicking for a moment because she’d thought she was being subtle.  He’s holding up his phone.  It’s ringing.  

“Go for it,” she says, and he smiles, getting up and leaving the table.

Arya debates it for about a minute.  It’s ultimately the realization that if Elmar talks in five-paragraph-essays, she’ll probably be waiting a while.  So she gets to her feet and sits  down in the chair that Jeyne had once occupied.

Gendry blinks at her in surprise.  

“Sorry about Jeyne,” she says, deciding honesty’s probably the best way for it.  He looks at her warily.  His eyes are bloodshot from drink, which only makes the blue of his irises stand out that much more.   _Tully colors_ , she thinks, bemused.   _Red and blue._

“Yeah.  Poor pathetic drunk Gendry,” he responds at last.  

“I don’t think you’re pathetic,” Arya says.  “It’s hard.”

She doesn’t know why she does it, but she reaches out and touches his hand.  She really shouldn’t.  She’s on a date with someone else.  But the second she does she feels something shoot up her arm, the way that Sansa’s romance novels always described, and she feels her eyes widen.  Gendry stares at her, and she can see from the sudden clarity in his bleary gaze that he felt it too.


	54. Moving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For akosiroxy.

she hadn’t meant to land there.  she’d meant to land on his side, so she could curl up next to him and they could both just not move for a few minutes.  but their apartment is full of boxes from the move, and one of those boxes is right next to the bed and she is not a clumsy person–she’s really not, but she’s a  _tired_  person so she lands with her face on gendry’s groin.

he makes a weird sound.  “what are you…?”

“sorry.  didn’t mean to,” arya says.  “tripped over a box.”

“mischievous cardboard.”

“uh huh.”

but she doesn’t move.  she knows she doesn’t have to, and her body is too tired to.  so she lies there for afew minutes, her face against gendry’s groin, wondering if they’ll fall asleep like that, and she’ll wake up tomorrow morning with him hard in her face.  she grins.

“what are you grinning about?”

“you can feel me grinning through your pants?” she snorts.

“well, it’s quite sensitive down there,” he points out.

“yeah, but you’re wearing blue jeans.”

“i mean, i can’t see the grin, but i can sort of feel the movement, and figure you’re using that dirty mind of yours.”

“i have not got a dirty mind.”

“oh really.”

“shut up.”

he snorts.  “go on then, what are you grinning about?”

which only makes her grin harder.  

oh, what the hell.  she nudges his dick with her nose.  “you.”

and she doesn’t have to look up at gendry to know he’s grinning now too.


	55. aryaxgendryweek: midnight

It’s just past midnight and Arya of House Stark sleeps.  She sleeps, but she is not asleep.  She runs beneath the moon, singing with her many small cousins, tasting the cold on the Night Wolf’s tongue.  

She has never known cold like this.  Not even when she was a pup.  The snows that had fallen the day she had left her birth pack had been light, puffed flakes clumping together as they fell from the sky.  These snows are small, but they fall quickly, and she feels heat on her nose, her breath misting in the air in front of her.

She sings, and she runs, and she is not alone.  The rivers are not yet frozen, though some of their rocks have a coat of ice on them, and the Night Wolf notices.  The Night Wolf notices everything.  She notices that the horsback men are fewer now, and that there are fewer great campings of men.  They go into their stone homes and do not fight one another.  Perhaps they remember the meaning of pack; perhaps they are afraid of the cold.  

The men have grown wary of her, but the Night Wolf is too cunning for them.  They may think she is easy to find, but she hides better than they realize.  She was only a pup when she learned how to hide.  She runs now, and circles around them and their blood is hot in the cold night.

Twice, she circles around the inn.  It is a small inn.  Its walls are stone, but it is not like the great stone home of her birth pack.  Only a small pack inside, not a big pack.  Easy prey.

She hears the singing of steel–a hammer on an anvil.  It is a familiar sound.  She heard it when she was a pup, and she was with her birth pack.  At first the screams of hot metal had frightened her, but she’d learned not to be afraid.  

He would be easy to attack.  The man who hits the steel, and his pups inside.  He would be so easy.  He is smaller than she is.  They all are.  And they haven’t enough man-claws to fight back.  But his scent is familiar to her, though she’s never smelled it.  Why is it familiar to her?  Why does he smell of home? Of pack?  He is not her pack.  He is a man, broad of chest and hard of muscle.  He could be dangerous to her.

But he’s not dangerous.  The Night Wolf knows this.  She doesn’t know how she knows this, but she does.  

So she does not attack.  She circles the inn and leaves, remembering where it is.  She is the Night Wolf.  She notices everything.

In her dreams, Arya Stark is the Night Wolf.  In her dreams, Arya knows where to find her pack again.


	56. aryaxgendrweek: wet

Tom had always said if you stroked a girl right she’d be as wet as a ripe peach, dribbling all over your hand.  “That’s why they call it the peach, isn’t it?” he’d said, winking and jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the brothel.   _Like an inn, but with girls._

Gendry had grunted.  He hadn’t cared.  Or he had.  But he hadn’t.  It was confusing.  He was supposed to want girls, wasn’t he?  They were always clapping him on the shoulder and telling him that if they were as young as he was, they’d have four girls in a night without thinking.  He should have wanted that, shouldn’t he?

And he did–after a fashion.  God only knew that he had dreams.  Dreams about girls.  Or rather a girl.  She was older in his dreams.  She wasn’t a little girl half his age–she was older.  Maybe even older than he was.  Taller too.  Not as tall as him, but tall enough that she’d only have to stand on her tip-toes to kiss him.

And she kissed him.  She kissed  _him_.  He’d heard them talk about kissing girls.  Everyone always said that it was boys that kissed girls and not the other way around, but she always kissed  _him_ , wanted  _him_.  She’d come after him, after all, even when it had cost her her freedom that first time.  She wanted  _him_.  And not anyone else.  She even said it sometimes, “I want you, Gendry,” and he felt himself grow warm as he rolled over in his bedding and tried not to think about how he was there alone beyond his imaginations of a girl who’d run off.   _She’s only a girl_ , he reminded himself again.   _Only a girl_.  

But she wanted him.   _As a friend_.  That was better than some others.  And in his dreams, she was older and wanted him as a woman wants a man, and he’d stroke her and kiss her and whisper words to her, and she’d grow wet as a juicy peach and he’d have to imagine that because his own hand around his cock was dry as he pumped it up and down, lost in imaginings of being wanted by someone who he’d like as not never see again.   _She doesn’t want you in the end, she wanted home and Winterfell._

 _I want you, Gendry.  I_ want _you._

_Please._

And he’d tremble, imagining her tremble, and he’d grow warm, imagining her warmth, and when he slept, she wasn’t truly gone, not truly lost to the wilds, because she was with him, tucked beneath his chin, not letting him alone, not letting him be lonely.


	57. aryaxgendryweek: secret relationship

It’s supposed to be a secret.  Supposed to be a secret because they’re fighting a bloody war, fighting for their lives, for the sake of humanity.  Seven hells, they shouldn’t even be doing this.

But they are.  There’s nothing like Gendry’s lips when she comes in from the cold, his chest pressed against hers, the heat of him rolling over her, better than a fire because she can feel his heart beat against her chest, and when he’s kissing her, for just a second, everything goes away–everything.  There’s no Night’s King at their doorstep, no horde of undead out in the snow, no food rations, no disgruntled army of Seven Kingdoms that don’t even particularly like one another anymore.  

There’s just her, and Gendry.  Her and Gendry and their hearts beating together as they roll together in her sleeping furs on the floor of the room that had once belonged to her father.

It’s supposed to be a secret.

That doesn’t mean it is.

She’s sure that others know.  Asha Greyjoy smirks at her and adjusts her scarf one morning to cover up a bruise Gendry had kissed into her neck.  Sansa watches Gendry with eyes that seem to twinkle.  And when she hears Bran in the wind, there’s something almost strangled in his tone, as though he’s biting back laughter.

Arya has half a mind to tell him to shut up, god or no god.  But instead, she rolls her eyes, and dons her armor, and sets her face and goes out into the cold, because there’s nothing like the cold to make her forget their whispers.  It won’t be for long though.  She’ll be back inside soon, and when she is, there will be Gendry to help her forget the cold.


	58. aryaxgendryweek: nervous

he shouldn’t be nervous.  there’s no reason on earth for him to be nervous.  and yet he is.  he’s always had good steady hands but they’re shaking right now so he jams them in his pockets and balls them into fists.  the cuffs of his shirt tighten around his wrist.  he can’t loosen his cufflinks.  she wouldn’t mind, but he can’t loosen them.  not now.

 _there is no reason to be nervous_ , he tells himself, staring at the big cross on the wall in front of him.   _no reason.  at all._ it’s a huge thing, made of silver and carved and ornamented in all sorts of patterns.  she’d told him once it had been brought over from italy several centuries ago.  gendry’d never been inside a church before her, and now here he is, staring at a big silver cross that’s so shiny he can see his face in it–even if his face is distorted.

he hears the buzzing of people behind him.  he tries not to hear them.  usually he’s good at tuning out the buzzing.  usually he’s good at making it so that he can’t hear them.  it’s always made it easier–who gives a shit what people think.  but today the buzzing isn’t a condemnation, it’s excitement, and gendry’s too nervous to tune it out.

 _don’t be nervous, you stupid_ , he thinks, and it’s in her voice.  it’s always her voice.  when he calls himself stupid.  she’d once said she always heard his voice when she called herself stupid too.  it felt less a beratement in his voice, she said.  because if gendry was calling her stupid, then there was a good chance at some point she’d stop being stupid.  they did that for one another.  de-stupefied one another.

his throat is dry, and he realizes that he hasn’t had water since breakfast nearly six hours ago now.  christ.  christ, he shouldn’t even think the word christ like that in a church.  shit.  shit he shouldn’t swear either.  wasn’t that some sort of sin or something?  there were too many sins.  that was all he’d ever gotten out of religion growing up.  all sorts of sins and sinners, as though that was a way to–

he almost jumps out of his skin when jeyne claps him on the shoulder.  she’s wearing a tuxedo and has some yellow flowers tucked behind her ear.  “you ready there, smith?” she asks him.

he can’t even manage a “yes, heddle.”  he can’t even manage a smile.  his cuffs are cutting off circulation in his hands now, and he’s all right with that because if he focuses on that he doesn’t focus on anything else, and he can’t even block the sound of the assembled people out of his head.

an organ begins to play, and jeyne squeezes his arm and looks over his shoulder, and he knows she’s watching the door for him.  and there’s that crowd he can’t tune out, oh-ing and ah-ing.  

“you should turn,” jeyne hisses in his ear.  “she’s so beautiful.”

he knows that though.  he’s known that for ages, and he’s sure that a pretty white dress won’t make her more beautiful than he already thinks she is.  but even as he does turn around, he can hear her voice in his head.  _well that was a remarkably stupid thing to say._

stupid.  stupefied, more like.  and he feels his eyes prickle and he swallows because arya’s always been pretty, but there’s something about seeing her coming down an aisle on her father’s arm in a dress that’s much lacier than he’d expected, that makes him wonder if he’s forgotten how to breathe.  she’s beautiful, stunning, perfect in every way but there’s something about her eyes–they’re bright and locked onto his like a laser beam and of course there was no need to be nervous about arya.  there’s never any reason to be nervous about arya.  she always blows him away, every day finding some new way, and she never seems to tire of it.  never.  forever.

as she gets closer and closer the organ seems to fade away and his hands unclench from their balled up fists and he feels his blood flowing more easily to his fingers such that, when he holds out a hand to take hers, he feels the warmth of her skin, the softness of it.  


	59. aryaxgendryweek: heat

it feels like the stupidest “situational causality that underlies porn,” and arya rolls her eyes the second that she sees the prompt.

“heat? really?”  she looks at gendry.  

“i think they want us to fuck,” gendry says dryly.  arya glares at him.  “look, it wasn’t my idea,” he says, raising his hands defensively.  

“sure it wasn’t,” she mutters dryly.  she’s older now.  she knows what that fucking scene at the peach meant, when he went off and threatened to ring bella’s bell.  she guffaws.

“what?”

“i’m just remembering that time you threatened to bone your own sister because you wanted to make me jealous.”

“ _look for the last time i didn’t know she was my sister.”_

arya hoots with laughter and pokes him in the stomach.  he’s got very firm abs.  he always has.  he’s always been fit.  she’d noticed he was strong even when she was a kid.  she wasn’t  _blind_  (well…not anymore) or  _stupid_.  she’d never been stupid.  

“yeah well….” gendry scrambles for words, “you were supposed to be in a love triangle with  _jon_  and  _tyrion lannister.”_

arya shrugs.  “yeah but i wasn’t in the end, was i?  i went off and cavorted around the riverlands with you instead.”  she frowns.  she’s not stupid.  “no wonder they want us in bed together, to be honest.”

gendry looks at the computer, his face purposefully blank.

“oh shut up,” arya snaps at him, thwacking him across the stomach again.  

“i didn’t say anything.”

“you were thinking it though.”

“thinking  _what_?”

“you _know_ what _!”_

“i really have no idea.”

“you’re one of them,” she mutters under her breath, glaring at the computer again.  “a…a shipper or whatever it’s called.”

“i’ve never been on a ship.”

“don’t you get evasive with me.  we all know you spent a lot of time on that fucking rowboat.”

“yeah but only in show canon.  it doesn’t count if it’s show canon.”

“so you’ll be offended if i say i didn’t eye you up or whatever in harrenhal, then?”

“you totally eyed me up in harrenhal in the books.”

“i was  _ten,_  gendry.”

“so?  i’m just callin’ it like i saw it, ok?”

arya half-growls at him before running her hands through her hair so it sticks on end again.  without really paying attention gendry reaches up and smooths it down for her.  she likes the feel of his hands.

“right,” he says.  “heat.”

“i mean, we could just set it in the forge, right?  a good long montage of me watching you smith.”

“yeah, but i bet the fic author knows fuck-all about proper smithing and prays to god every day that her readers don’t too.”

“so?  what’s the problem then?”

“i’m a smith.  i like it when i smith properly.  i’ve spent a bloody fucking long time learning how to do it.”

arya sighs.  “we could do one about it being bloody cold during the second long night or something?” she suggests feebly.

“honestly, i’d prefer not.  i mean,  _the winds of winter_  and  _a dream of spring_ were  _really_   _fucking cold_ , do you really want to go back to that setting?”

arya chews her lip, thinking hard, then throws up her hands in frustration.  “ _they just want us to fuck!  who wrote these prompts? bran? he’s such shipper trash.“_

“are you allowed to call god-kings shipper trash?”  arya glares at him and he backs off.  “ok.  ok.  no forges.  no long night.  we could do a modern au?  i don’t know…sitting by a fire?  no that’s corny…oh! oh!” he snaps trying to find the words.  “sunburns.  and like aloe vera or….no.  no that doesn’t work either.”

arya smiles at him.  he’s clearly thinking hard.  and she knows he’s trying really hard not to think about how this prompt is so totally a porn prompt.  he doesn’t like to assume things of her, or push her if she doesn’t want to be pushed.  it’s part of what she likes about their relationship.  he treats her well, treats her fairly, respects her.

she sighs.  “no,” she says.  “no…it’ll have to be fucking.  it’s really the only way.”

“you’re sure?” he asks.  she rolls her eyes.  

“look, it’s not like i particularly mind having sex with you.  i think we have a good time.  it’s just nice to get some diversity in there every now and then, you know.”

“variety is the spice of life.”

“exactly.”

“right so…” gendry frowns.  “how do we go about this.  like…what sort of setup?”

arya snorts.  “setup?  really?”

“i dunno.  it sets a mood, you know?”

“yeah but let’s be real, it’s not like anyone reading this fic is going to be in it for the  _setup_.  they’ll see the nsfw header and prepare themselves accordingly.  fuck i’d be surprised if they hadn’t skipped all this bit.”

“so what…we just…?”

arya closes the laptop and turns around in the chair, smiling up at gendry.  she grabs him by the hem of his shirt and runs her fingers through the hair that grows on his lower stomach.  

“you sure?  that you don’t want a proper set-up?  flowers or…i dunno.”  

“gendry.  take off your fucking shirt.”

he doesn’t need to be told twice, which arya’s pleased by.  sometimes he’s in a ridiculously noble mood, or angsts for twelve pages about her being a stark of winterfell and him being a bastard, even if he’s a king’s bastard.  but clearly he’s not in one of those moods right now.  she likes watching his muscles ripple as he takes off his shirt and chucks it away.  he’s standing so she can see his abs.  he knows she likes that.  

“you gonna stand?” he asks her.

“are you gonna give me a show or what?” she shoots right back, raising her eyebrows and gendry rolls his eyebrows and begins unbuckling his belt.  she’s tempted to tell him to ditch the attitude, but he’s already shuffling out of his pants and boxers, so she doesn’t bother because–and she knows it’s stupid–the sight of his cock always distracts her.  it’s just a very nice dick.  he’s got a good package.  

“your turn,” and his voice is low, and gravelly and makes arya’s breath hitch.  she stands up slowly, watching as his eyes begin to go dark as she peels off her top as slowly as she can. she likes moving slowly for him.  she likes giving him a show.  she likes the way he looks when he’s staring at her, likes actually watching as his cock grows stiffer as she removes first her shirt, then her skirt until she’s standing there in just her bra and underwear.  

she tilts her head, observing him.  he’s fully hard now and she’s not even fully naked.  she likes it when that happens, and feels a catlike grin spreading across her face.

“what?” he asks.

“you can touch yourself you know.  i know you want to.”

his lips twitch and his hand moves to his cock and he begins to stroke it lazily.  arya reaches behind herself and unhooks her bra, letting it slide off her arms to the floor. she stretches her arms overhead to let him get a good look at her tits, deciding.  is she going to let him top, or is she going to top him.  both have their benefits.  she could really do with him topping her.  he’s always really good when that happens. 

“and the underwear,” he growls, and that’s when she decides.  she smiles at him coyly, tilting her head and walks towards him standing so close to him that the tips of her nipples brush against his chest and she can feel his cock and his pumping hand brush against her stomach.  she looks him dead in the eye for a moment before standing on her toes and kissing him hard, drawing his lower lip between her teeth and biting down.  then she sinks to her knees, pushes his hand aside and takes his cock in her mouth.

his hands fly to her hair, running through it, making it stand on end as she sucks him inside her, tracing along the veins of his shaft and circling her tongue over his tip.  his skin is hot beneath her lips, and she loves the groans he makes as she sucks.  she looks up at him and sees him watching her, his blue eyes hooded, his lips pink, his cheeks flushed.  his chest is rising and falling as he breathes in and out and he runs a thumb across her cheek which sends a shiver across her skin.  

 _but do i make him come now?_  she wonders, slowing her pace.  she could.  easily.  he’s close, and it’s not like it’s actually  _hard_  for her to make him come.  he says sometimes that it’s easier to come with her than when he’s jerking off, and she believes him because honestly, she’s hot and he has a huge raging boner for her.  it’s nice when he comes inside her though.  it’s really nice.  she likes that best, she thinks.  but at the same time…variety is the spice of life.

she relaxes her throat and takes him as deep in as he can go, feeling the brush of his hair against her nose, and she cups his balls and feels them tense before he comes hard down her throat with a groan of her name.  she smiles and looks up at him while he’s still in her mouth.  or rather, she smises because her lips are too full of him to really move so she has to smile through her eyes.

gendry pulls out of her and sinks to his knees in front of her, his eyes dazed.  “that was…”

she grins at him.

“fuck, i wasn’t expecting to come that fast.”

arya shrugs one shoulder, quite pleased with herself.  he kisses her, his hand at the base of her neck, running his thumb along her jaw now, and he smiles into her lips.  his other hand traces down her spine sending goosebumps across her skin.  it’s a lazy kiss, a slow kiss, the kiss of a man who’s just come hard and is enjoying those post-coital endorphins flowing through his body.  arya lets him enjoy them.  she knows he’ll just drag it out more if she acts impatient.  but even besides that, she likes lazy kisses from gendry.  she knows him well enough by now to know that the lazy kisses aren’t just lazy, and they certainly aren’t just toying with her (though they are that too).  they’re one of the few moments he has to really…love her.  love her without saying it.  to kiss her slowly and know that she’s feeling his lips and his breath and his hands and that she consumes him in some way.  

so she waits.  she relishes.  she makes little noises of pleasure as his tongue strokes hears, and lets herself sink into the sensation of him drifting his hands over her breasts.  

she feels gendry shift off his knees and his hands drop to her waist, his lips drop from hers to her neck, to her chest, to her belly button to her lower abdomen and she widens her legs in anticipation.  

a moment later–and she’s really not sure how the choreography of this particular move works–her underpants are off, he’s lying flat on his back and she’s straddled across his face, and his hands holding her hips firmly above him while he licks at her. she moans, and lets her head fall forward, and she would close her eyes and let the sensation take over except that she likes looking down at him while he licks her.  his eyes are closed as his tongue circles along her outer labia, and she sighs and tries to push herself closer to his face, but his hands won’t let her.   _he’s so strong_ , she thinks happily.  she’s always known that.  

the tip of his nose bumps against her clit and she lets out a gasp and almost falls forward from the spike of heat that rises through her.  she would have fallen forward if it weren’t for his grip at her waist.  

it’s the weirdest feeling–having him smile against her cunt.  she never gets over it.  not ever.  and she looks down at him again and his eyes are open now, lazy, amused, warm and she knows he’s going to kiss her clit right as he does.  it starts off gentle, then he pulls it between his lips and sucks, and arya’s trembling on top of him, and she feels only the lightest brush from his tongue and her heart is pounding in her chest so hard she feels like she’s flying as her cunt convulses in waves that roll over her over and over and over again.

her head’s still spinning a bit as gendry guides her off his face and onto the floor next to him, pulling her onto her side so that she’s cradled against his chest.

arya grins to herself.  “think that was ‘heat’ enough?” she asks.

“if it wasn’t, do we get round two?” gendry responds, lips quirking upwards.

“maybe,” she says, and she wiggles her butt into his dick and lets herself drift off to sleep.


	60. drunken teenagers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by tumblr user fat-walda's plights of late.

gendry could kill them.  he really could.  it’s four o’clock in the fucking morning.  don’t they have bedtime?  aren’t they tiny children?  who lets them have alcohol anyway?  that’s irresponsible.

he groans and puts his pillow over his head for about thirty seconds, before it gets too hot against his chin and he can’t breathe easily.  he moves it again.

he hears a shriek of laughter and that’s fucking it.  that’s  _fucking_  it.

he goes to his window, yanks it open and shouts “oy.  shut the fuck up will you?”

to his surprise, they do shut the fuck up.  and then a peal of laughter fills his ears.

“guess it’s time, mates,” he hears one of them say.

“oh come on–don’t let the geezer get you down,” says another.

“nah.  it’s late.  my parents will be up my ass if i stay out much longer.”

and he watches as they go their separate way.  

“hey,” he hears and he twists his head.  one of his neighbors is sticking her head out the window–the one who’s got a long face and grey eyes.  he’s seen her before, but has never said hellow.  she always seems to be talking to someone.  she’s not now.  now, she’s bleary eyed.  “was that necessary?”

“couldn’t sleep.”

“yeah, but you woke me up,” she says, and gendry flushes.  “oh.  sorry.”

she shrugs.  “though, honestly, they wake me up sometimes too, so…thanks i guess. hope they remember next time.”

she gives him a smile and disappears back into her apartment.  

gendry follows suit, and a few minutes later, he’s drifting off to sleep and strange dreams of his next door neighbor.  


	61. Person A is from a big city, but when they decide to visit the country they meet Person B.

gendry’s seen every single movie on the planet.  willow drags him to all the rom coms and makes fun of him for rolling his eyes and calls him a hypocrite because he wants to date girls but can’t bear romance on screen.  so he knows how this goes.

“you’re really not from around here,” she says, grinning at him.  she’s sitting on a wooden fence, just watching him as he holds his phone up in the sky trying to get even a bar with which he can send a text telling lem that it’s  _not funny_  and that he’s going to get  _a shit ton of payback_  if he doesn’t come and get gendry  _right now._

“how could you tell?” gendry asks, sighing.  she grins at him.

“you should know better than to look for cell service out here.  we don’t have it.  sheep yes.  cell service, not at the moment.”

gendry stares at her for a moment.  “please say you’re joking,” he says.

her face splits in a grin.  “you’ve got river mobile or something?” she asks.

“klnet,” he replies.

“yeah, we don’t do sim card based stuff up in the great white north.”  she digs her own phone out of her pocket.  “who’re you trying to call?  better hope they don’t too.”

she hands him her phone and gendry stares at it.  in king’s landing, no one just hands over their phone to a stranger.  but she does it, and she’s still smiling at him and there’s a warmth to her eyes.

“thanks,” he says, and takes the phone and it takes him about fifteen seconds to remember that he was supposed to be calling lem.


	62. Person A falls off a structure, right into Person B’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for bookskitten/aryastarkqueenofwolves

_just like bran_  is all she can think as she falls, the wind whipping through her hair, screaming in her ears,  _just like bran._ in her dreams, bran flies.  in her dreams, he’s a raven,  _qorking_  and telling her that there’s very little time.  in her dreams, he doesn’t fall.  but she’s not dreaming–not this time.  she’s sure of it.  and just like bran, she won’t fly, can’t fly, because she’s only a girl and the world is coming to an end around her and all she can do is fall–not fly– _fall_.

it’s all very slow.  or very fast.  one moment she’s in the air and the wind is screaming louder than she is, and the next she’s aching, and her head is spinning but she’s not falling anymore.  she’s in armored arms and her head snapped back, but her neck didn’t break, no more than her back did.  and when she opens her eyes, she sees a bull’s head helm and she can’t believe it, doesn’t dare believe it, because she’s only ever known one person with a bull’s head helm and it was stolen away from him.  it can’t be….

but it is.


	63. for a very rude anon

“arya!”

“no!”

“go!”

“i’m not leaving you.”

“don’t be stupid.”

“don’t  _you_  be stupid.”

the smoke is stinging her eyes and she hates him.  hates him and his stupid forge and the stupid fire and who  _cares_ if they need more valyrian steel swords and need them reforged if the forge burns with gendry inside it.

“you’ll die.”

“ _i’m not leaving you.”  not again_ , she doesn’t add.

she hears the howling of wolves outside, hears nymeria’s growl and the shouts of men calling for water, for dirt, for anything that might smother the flames.

“ _go!”_ gendry yells at her again, and he shoves her towards the door.  “i’ll not lose you this way.”

“nor i you!” she screams at him.

“you won’t lose me.  not ever,” he says and his voice is hollow and she could strangle him.  she could kiss him.  she could cry harder and louder than she’s ever cried before in her life because she’d found him again, truly found him again and now he’s being stupid.

“they’re just swords,” she pleads.  “they’re not–”

but a beam falls in the middle of her words, landing between them.  “no!” she shrieks.  “no!  no no!  gendry!  _gendry!”_ but she can’t see him.  she can’t.  and she hears nymeria howling and runs for it, sobbing, hears gendry’s hammer ringing against hot steel and feels her heart thudding, breaking in time.


	64. Things you said when you were drunk

“you look like you should be on the cover of a romance novel.”

gendry almost spits out his mouthful of beer and stares at her.  she’s clearly drunk, her eyes are bright, her cheeks are pink, her words are slurred and she’s got a weird expression on her face.

“what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“you’re handsome.  and you’re all muscly.  and the ladies would probably swoon if your shirt were unbuttoned halfway.”  arya reaches over and fiddles with the top button of her shirt, and he grabs her wrist.

“why would it be unbottoned halfway?”

“because that’s what they are on romance novels.  sansa’s got fifty in her room.  they’re all unbuttoned halfway.  the shirts.  not the men.  can men be unbuttoned?  hmmmmm.”

she looks at him and gendry begins to laugh.

“you’re drunk.”

“yeah.  i know.  and you’re handsome.  and muscly.”

“and you want me on the cover of your romance novel.”

“i don’t read romance novels.” arya says primly, then her eyes get wicked.  “i read  _erotica.”_

and gendry almost chokes on his beer again.


	65. Things you said when it was over (and subsequent fix-it sequels...)

he hates himself.  hates himself, but he knows it’s for the best.  she just thinks she wants him because she’s perfect in every way.  but it’s for the best because he knows she can’t be with him, her stupid family is too moneyed to want some lowlife like him in arya  _stark’s_  life.  

he hates himself.  hates himself for making her cry, hates himself for watching as she gathered her bookbag and swung it over her shoulder as her bangs fell into her eyes.  hates himself when she looks back as the door to the coffee shop closes behind her and there’s red around the grey.

he lies there on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, knowing that at some point, he’ll feel better.  that everything gets better with time.   and when his phone buzzes and he sees her words across the lock screen,  _i love you you idiot.  don’t you get it? isn’t that enough?_  he hates himself even more.

* * *

“no.”

“what?”

“no.  you’re an idiot, and i don’t accept this.”

“but–”

“you love me.”

“arya–”

“you love me.  you love me, you’re in love with me, you’re being an idiot with class issues which, to be fair, are valid given your life story, but for fuck’s sake don’t take that out on me and  _don’t_  deny yourself something that makes you happy–namely me.”

“but–”

“no.  stop talking.  when you talk, you say stupid things.”

* * *

her lips crash against his, and she’s right really–he should stop talking because when he talks, he says stupid things.  and the way her tongue feels against his…

he hadn’t expected her to come after him.  he hadn’t dared hope.  but the thing about her, was that she always did what he least expected, and never let him have the final word.

and right now, how glad of that he is.  he holds her tight, fingers twining in her hair, feeling the way her body curves against his, the way her heart pounds through her and she’s here, she’s here, she had refused to let him have his way and made him take what he wanted most in the world.

he’d not expected it, but he should have because his heart is racing, and hers is too, and they do that to each other.  set each other’s hearts at a gallop.

he kisses her lips, kisses her nose, the spot between her eyebrows, her cheek, her neck, loving her, adoring her, that familiar taste of her, the way she holds his head, runs her hands along his arms, whispers his name over and over again like some sort of prayer.

his hands find the zip in her dress and tug it loose so that it pools at her ankles, and her hands fumble at his belt and she pulls him loose and a moment later, he’s shoved aside her underwear and he’s pressing into her, the warm wet of her spreading over him like heaven as he thrusts again and again until there’s nothing in the world but the two of them–just her, and him, and the way they fit together more perfectly than a dream.


	66. Things you didn’t say at all

she’s gone.  

they’ve hunted through the woods for days now, for signs of the hound, and she’s gone.  they’re both gone.

“she’s done that before,” harwin says sadly.  “after that bit with the prince and his wolf.  she’s always been good at escaping.”

gendry thinks of a girl hiding in the woods, of a girl who got them out of harrenhal, of a girl who ran off into the night and didn’t come back even though he called for her.  he’s not surprised by this.

 _and now i’ll never see her again_.  it’s a leaden stone in his belly.  she’ll be gone now, off with her highborn family and she’ll care not a whit for him ever again.  except that felt wrong.  it was wrong, somehow.  she would still care, he knew.

that made it worse.

that she’d be gone for good, though she still may care.  

_i never said thank you.  thank you for coming after me._


	67. Anastasia AU

She doesn’t remember much.  She’s young enough, after all, and they’d found her with her head bleeding.  But she does remember some things.  She remembers being loved, remembers a brother with a long face and another brother who didn’t stop bleeding when he was cut and a priest who promised to heal him.

She does her best not to dwell on those things, though.  She does her best to dwell on the here and now, because she’s tired of hitting walls in that blank spot that was her past before she woke up one day in an orphanage.

They call her Arya Horseface here.  She doesn’t like that at all, and hates Zhannochka for giving her that name.  She doesn’t look that much like a horse, does she?  Zhannochka just likes to be mean, though.  Zhannochka lost everything when the Bolsheviks came and shot her parents.  Arya tries to be nice to her.  She has this…this feeling that something happened to her family when the Bolsheviks came too, but she doesn’t know for sure.  And she hates hitting that wall.  And Zhannochka always gives her withering looks and makes neighing noises at her until she goes away.

Well, Arya is going away today.  She’s sixteen now, and they’ve told her she’s old enough to leave if she likes and, unlike Zhannochka who is frightened of doing  _anything_ , Arya is leaving and going to Leningrad and she’s going to find something to do with herself because if she stays in this orphanage for one more day, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.  She hates being inactive, almost as much as she hates the disparaging comments Mordane Nikolaievna makes about how her hands are like a blacksmith’s and her stitching is crooked—as if such comments weren’t counterrevolutionary anyway. 

So she goes.  She wraps herself in a thick coat, puts on a heavy hat and makes her way towards the city and a new beginning.   _A new beginning,_ Arya thinks.  _What was the old?_

But she tries not to let herself worry about that.  She can’t let herself worry about that just yet.  If she does…she feels like there’s a hole in her heart.  A hole in her heart that whatever hit her in the head paved over, but it’s not a strong piece of pavement, and they didn’t fill the hole, just covered it, and one bad winter will crack the cement and all she’ll feel is pain again.   _Pain over what?_ She doesn’t want to know the answer to that.

-

There’s a rumor in Leningrad.  A rumor that one of the Princesses lives.  Arya snorts at the very thought.  She doesn’t know much, but she knows that the Party will have something to say about those rumors, and that the poor girl—if she  _is_  alive—is better off pretending to be dead, and finding herself a cobbler or blacksmith or proletariat to marry and have fine Russian babies with. 

-

She walks past the Winter Palace a few times, and every time she does, a chill goes up her spine.  But she attributes that to the fact that winter is coming.

-

“Hey—you!”

Arya jumps back, startled.  She’d just snuck into the palace.  She hadn’t been planning on  _doing_  anything, just exploring.  It was locked away, and she hadn’t actually expected anyone to be there.  But there he is, tall and angry looking and Arya isn’t stupid, so she runs, because if he’s a party member she’s in deep trouble.

She’s quick, but he’s got longer legs and it’s not long before she feels his hand clamped on her wrist.

“What are you doing here?” he growls.

“Nothing!” Arya says.  “Just looking around.  I wasn’t causing trouble.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”  She glares at him and then stops.  There’s something familiar about him.  She doesn’t know what.  But something familiar. 

There isn’t anger in his face anymore.  His blue eyes are narrowed as his eyes sweep up along her face and then—her stomach twists uncomfortably—down her body in her thick long coat.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

“Arya,” she says.

“Arya?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your patronym?”

She doesn’t remember.  She never knew. 

“I don’t have one,” she says.  Let him think of that what he likes.  She doesn’t care.  Besides, if he complains, she’ll call him a revisionist who is too intent on returning to the imperial system.  That’ll scare him back.

“Is Arya short for something?” he asks her.  Arya frowns.  She can’t remember that either.  He takes her silence as some sort of answer, and leans forward.  “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

-

Gendry is much taller than her, and there’s something familiar about him, but Arya can’t place what it is.  He’s not a Party member, and Arya’s quick to learn why.

He wants to bring the Princess back to her brother.

Or rather, he wants to bring the “princess” back to her “brother.”  He doesn’t care much if it’s really her, or if her brother is really her brother.  He just wants to get West.  “They say everything’s equal here,” he mutters, “But I don’t want it to be equal.  I want to rise.”

It’s a dangerous thing to say, but he knows that Arya won’t tell—not least because she’s agreed to go.  It’s an adventure, she tells herself.  The sort of adventure she’d heard stories about when she was a girl and they were reading bedtime stories to the orphans.   _I could be killed_   _for it_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t care.  She remembers that brother with a long face, and remembers that his name, too, was Ivan.

-

“Jon,” Gendry says.  They’re sitting on a train, and he’s got a set of papers in his hands.  They’re forged.  Arya knows it.

“Hm?”

“Not Ivan.  Jon.  He was always strange with his western name.  I think he was named for the Czar’s uncle or something.  His name is Jon.  Not Ivan.”

Arya frowns.   _Jon…_  it feels oddly familiar in her mind, but maybe that’s because it sounds oddly like Zhannochka. 

“Jon,” she repeats, and looks down at her papers.  She is named Nancy on them, and her mother is British and her father is French, Gendry tells her.  Nancy Leloup, though she goes by Nan for short.  It is her “French” “father” who will get Nan out and into the West to Jon. 

“What about you?” she asks Gendry.

“What about me?” Gendry says gruffly.

“Who are you then?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says.

Arya rolls her eyes.  “How are your papers going to get you out then?”

“Oh,” Gendry says, and then he looks down at them.  “They’re forgeries.  Don’t say anything special.”

“Yes, but if the guards come through, I should know your story too, shouldn’t I?”

He’s odd, Gendry.  He has a secret of some sort, and Arya doesn’t know what it is.  But sometimes, she catches him watching her, and it’s like…It’s like he…

_She hears gunfire.  And smells smoke._

-

“What is your family like?” she asks him.  Their train is taking them through Poland.  When the guards had come through, they’d not detected the forgeries and everything is going smoothly.  Arya almost can’t believe it.

“Don’t have one,” Gendry says, shrugging.

“You’re an orphan?” she asks him quickly.  He’d never said.

Gendry nods and looks out the window. “My mother died when I was very young.” 

“Do you remember her?” Arya asks wistfully.  She can’t remember her mother.

Gendry looks at her, then shakes his head.

“You?  Do you remember yours?”  There it is again, that weight, that secret.

_Come on—through here!  They won’t find you!_

Arya shakes her head and chews her lip.  She hates not remembering.

-

He’s gruff.  It’s the first thing she’d noticed about him, back in Leningrad, and it’s hard not to notice it when it’s just the two of them on the train headed west.  He’s gruff, but when Arya drifts off to sleep and wakes up with her head on Gendry’s shoulder and his arm wrapped around her while he looks out the window, she thinks that maybe, underneath his gruffness, there’s something kind, and gentle.

Not that she’d ever tell him that, though.  He would probably puff up and get even gruffer if she did.  

There’s something so soothing about him. Something familiar…

_No!  My brother!  We have to go back for Jon!_

_Don’t be stupid, do you want to get yourself killed?_

-

“You’re chewing your lip,” Gendry says to her.  They’re standing in front of the house that Jon Snow apparently lives in in Paris.  Arya has never felt so shabby in her life compared to all of the Parisians strutting about in their fancy coats.  She looks the part of the Russian orphan far more than she’d realized.  

“What if he takes one look at me and knows what’s up?” she asks Gendry.

Gendry doesn’t say anything.  He just looks at her and pats her on the arm.  "More fool him, then,“ he says.

The door opens and Arya gasps, because it's  _almost_  like looking in a mirror.

The man in front of her has her long horsey face and her grey eyes, which bug out of his head as he stares at her.  

“Arya?” he breathes, and a moment later he’s running down the steps of the house and wrapping his arms around her and saying her name over and over and over again, and calling her little sister, his hands in her hair.

_Sansa says that I’m not truly a Stark.  She says I’m a changeling._

_I promise you, little sister, you are a Stark.  Sansa’s being silly._

There are tears in Arya’s eyes. 

_Gun fire, screaming, a kitchen boy with dark hair and blue eyes grabbing her hand and–_

She turns and looks at Gendry.  

His eyes are so blue.

“You knew,” she breathes, hardly daring to believe it.  Jon is talking now, promising to shower Gendry in riches beyond his wildest imaginings, but Gendry’s face is surly and he doesn’t look like he’s listening.  He’s staring at Arya, and Arya…

“You saved my life,” she tells him, and he flinches.  "You knew it was really me, didn’t you?“

“I didn’t,” he says, stubborn, but she sees the lie in his face.  

She lets go of Jon for just a moment and he gives her a confused look.  She steps towards Gendry and takes one of his hands.  It’s big, and rough and his eyes drop to it the moment she touches it.

“Will you join us for tea?” she asks him.  

Gendry looks up at her.

“I’m not worthy company for a princess,” he says.

“You’re my friend,” Arya responds firmly.  "Besides, I’m not a princess.  Not anymore.“  

She doesn’t let go of his hand when she turns back to Jon, and sees her brother looking between them, curiously.  He doesn’t say a word though, and they go inside together.


	68. Stop worrying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> birthday smut for fat-walda

Arya can’t sleep.  Over a year of planning, and she knows that all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t keep running down lists in her head.  Keep Robert’s table as far from the table with Gendry’s mom as possible.  Make sure that the Freys aren’t near Robb.  And Daena’s flight from Braavos had been cancelled due to strikes on ForelAir, so there no longer has to be a Braavosi-speaking table, since Brusco and his daughters had never been able to come.  

The flowers are all in order, the nametags printed on the fine heavy paper that her mother had insisted on, there is more wine than it is physically possible to drink, and they’d gotten two kegs of beer as well, because sure, it’s a wedding and you have to have wine at a wedding—at least that’s what her mother had insisted on—but Arya wants beer too, even if Gendry doesn’t drink.  

 _Gendry_.

She takes a deep breath.  She’s barely seen Gendry all week.  He’s been shepherding people to and from Winterfell, helping her father with errands—setting up the tent, cleaning out one of the attic rooms so that they can put up more guests there, helping direct the caterers because if Arya lets her mother near them all hell will break lose.  She misses him, the smell of his soap, the way he wraps his arms tightly around her and she buries her face in his chest and just lets the warmth of him wash over her.  

She tries to focus on that.

That’s a nice thing to think about.

Certainly better than wondering what happens if little Lya somehow swallows the rings before the ceremony tomorrow, even though Ygritte had promised that she would make sure her daughter was on her best behavior.  Lya’s wild, though, and you can never tell if she’ll behave.  “She will,” Jon had said, “She’s like you.  And you’d have behaved if it were your favorite aunt’s wedding, wouldn’t you?”

 _Stop worrying_ , she commands herself.  _If you keep worrying, you’ll not get to sleep, and you need to not look like a zombie tomorrow.  You also don’t want to be a zombie tomorrow.  If there’s a problem, it’ll get fixed.  It will be fine.  It will be fine._

The mantra of it will be fine, played over and over and over again in her head.  It will be fine, and the year and a half since they’d picked a date would all be worth it and then she’d never have to worry about a fucking family wedding again.  

Except to help Bran or Rickon, if they ever decided to get married.

But that would be different.

Then she could be like Sansa—not Robb, who did jack shit— sitting there catching the missing pieces but still able to pull away because she had to take care of her baby…oh god she wasn’t thinking about children right now.  Not right now, and  _certainly_  not the way that Gendry was when he babysat Sansa’s and Ned’s son, all attentive and careful in a way she hadn’t expected.

She presses her face into her pillow and screws up her eyes.

She is  _not_  thinking about that.  Get the damn wedding over with and then think about…No.  Not right now.

She twists in the bed, and is trying to think of something else to think about—something not wedding related, like work—as if she hadn’t been checked out for the past two weeks—or her dad’s knee replacement surgery which was happening many years too late after that dang horse had fallen on his leg and broken it.  

There.  

That was a safe subject.  Dad’s knee replacement, and how she was sure that mom would need her help while he was in the hospital, and—

She hears a creaking on the stairs and if she weren’t already still in her bed, she’d have frozen.  There’s definitely someone moving about.  She closes her eyes and listens.  It’s a light footstep—not the sound of Ned walking a fussy Arthur up and down the hallway.  It’s on the stairs, so not Bran who sometimes is up late at night.  But who walks that lightly up to the third floor?  

The door to her bedroom opens quietly and she sees Gendry peak his head around, as if checking on her.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, and in the darkness she sees him smile and take a step inside, closing the door behind him.

“I’m coming to see if you were awake,” he says quietly.  He doesn’t whisper.  He never does, but even so there’s no need.  She can hear Jon and Ygritte snoring down the hall, and hers and Jon’s are the only rooms on the third floor.   Gendry crosses to the bed and sits down next to her, running a hand along her leg over her blanket.  “Figured you might be suffering from overload the way I am.”

She sits up and rests her forehead against his shoulder.  He smells just the way Gendry always smells, and for the first time in weeks she feels calm.  

“Arya?”

“Hm?”  She looks up at him and gives him a smile, then presses her lips to his shoulder.  

“You should sleep,” he tells her.

“I’m trying, stupid,” she says.  “It’d help if you didn’t come barging into my room at all hours.”  She runs a hand along his arm so that he knows she’s lying, as if he didn’t know already.  It’s been years since she’d actually worried that he would take what she said too seriously.  Gods, they’re really getting married tomorrow.

Gendry only snorts.  “Yeah.  Sure.  Got that.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked, playing with the hair on his arm.

“Well, I kept running through these lists in my head,” he said and Arya felt her lips quirk into a smile.  “Things that I need to get done, things I need to triple check tomorrow—and my head was just roiling with it, and usually when my head is like that, I have someone there to help me calm down.”  His hand rises along her thigh.

“It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride the day of her wedding,” Arya remembers.

“It’s not daytime, and I sincerely doubt whoever thought of that superstition was counting seconds on a clock,” he said, shrugging.  “I also would imagine that they didn’t think that the groom and bride had been living together in sin for several years.”

Arya holds back her own snort of amusement.

“What time is it?”

“Just past midnight,” he says, and she groans.  

“I promised mum I’d get a full eight hours.”

“What time are you getting up?”

“Seven thirty.”

“Well, since that plan’s completely out the window, can I propose an alternate activity that might help you get to sleep?”  That hand was really quite high on her thigh now, and sliding inward against her inseam.  His other hand was now on the small of her back, toying with the hem of her—well, his, technically—t-shirt, fingers warm against her skin.

“An alternate to what?” Arya asked dryly.

“Making sure the seating charts are ok in your head for the twentieth time.”

Arya shuddered.  “I’d have thought you’d have wanted tomorrow night to be special,” she teased, pressing her lips to his shoulder again and letting her voice get all husky.  “You know, first night as husband and wife?”

“From what I hear,” Gendry said, “we both may be so tired that we’ll fall asleep while undressing.”

“No,” Arya said in mock aghast.

“Yes,” Gendry said.  “I’ve also heard some really depressing things about how much of tomorrow night’s dinner we’ll actually have time to eat, what with all the well-wishers.”

“Stop speaking that way,” Arya said, and Gendry’s hand snaked up her back under her shirt.  “Was it Ned who said that?  He likes to give you shit for being an ass to him when you first met.”

“Yeah,” he said sadly, and the hand on her leg began to creep up her front until it was over the top of the blanket.  He let it rest on her stomach as if unsure where to send it next.  “But besides, I don’t see this as ruining our wedding night—no more than tomorrow might ruin it,” he added.  “I see it much more as sealing up that last night of not-wedded-ness.  Sending it off with a bang.  As it were.”

“A bang?” Arya asked, determined to ignore that dumb pun.  “What did you have in mind?”

And that was it.  He bent down to kiss her and that hand resting on her stomach slid under the t-shirt and rose to find one of her breasts.  Lightly, he brushed his fingers underneath it as his tongue parted her lips and slid into her mouth, and Arya shifted, bringing herself to her knees.  She cupped his chin between her hands, feeling the roughness of stubble under her fingers.  She smiled into his lips, and felt her body begin to tremble as his hands continued to tease the undersides of her breasts, fingers never quite reaching her nipples.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, pulling away from him for just a moment.

“I’ve been here,” he said, but even if his words correct her, his tone is soft and a moment later, his lips her on her neck and his fingers—finally—are circling her nipples.  Arya twines her fingers through his hair, feeling the softness—slightly oily, she’s sure because he’s planning on washing it tomorrow morning—of it beneath her fingers.  She presses her lips to the top of his head, and one of his hands twists at her nipple, sending a flash of warmth to her stomach and bringing a smile to her lips.  It doesn’t last long, though.  Both his hands sink down to cup her ass and a moment later he’s lifting her onto his lap and she can feel him hard between her legs as his hands come back up to her breasts.  

Arya begins to rock back and forth, her cunt rubbing along his shaft through two pairs of underwear.  She feels her heart beat a little faster, feels her breath coming a little more shallow as she rubs, and Gendry lifts up her t-shirt to uncover her breasts and bends his head down to suck one into his mouth while Arya strips the t-shirt away and throws it somewhere across the room.  She holds his head between her hands again and chews on her lip to keep from crying out and waking Jon, Ygritte, and Lya, even though the combination of Gendry’s lips and his stubble rubbing roughly against her skin…

She pulls away and he looks up at her, surprised.  She doesn’t pull away from him.  Not ever.

“If you give me some kind of carpet burn that people can see over the neckline of my dress tomorrow…” she hisses at him.

He snorts, then leans forward, squinting, his hips still rocking slightly beneath hers.  He runs a finger along her neck.  “I wasn’t thinking about that up here,” he says.  “But I don’t know that I see anything.”

“Well, we both know my tits are more susceptible to that sort of thing than my neck.” The number of times Arya had awakened to hickies blooming her breasts was very high.  The last time she’d had a hickie on her neck might have been before she’d even met Gendry.

“Fair point,” Gendry said.  He gives her a cheeky smile.  “Well…I’ll just have to kiss you somewhere else then.”  

Arya rolls her eyes and pushes against his chest, then tugs his t-shirt over his head and sends it somewhere else in the room.  She bends down and kisses the crook of his neck while his hands run up and down over her spine, sucking on his skin.

“Oy, it’s only fair if people don’t see me all black and blue, you wanton woman.”

“You’re wearing a collar and a tie.  You’ll be fine.”

He pinches her and she squeals into his neck, then a moment later, she’s lying flat on her back and his lips are against hers again.  His tongue twines with hers and his kiss is slow this time, deep, and she loses herself in it for just a moment, letting her body go limp and feeling completely without stress for the first time in days.  Gendry traces circles into her cheeks, and the warmth of his breath against her upper lip…she’d forgotten that feeling.  How long had it been since she’d kissed him this deeply?  Can he feel her breath the same way?  Can she even breathe?

She wraps her legs around his hips, feeling just how wet their underwear is between them.  She smiles as she kisses him, and lets her hands drop to his hips, sliding them under the elastic of his boxers.  She runs her fingers down the seam of his ass, circling him when she reaches the hole.

“Bet you wish I’d brought a dildo,” she teases, pressing lightly into it.  

Gendry groans and for the first time in minutes, his hips buck away from hers, towards her fingers.  

“I can’t say I’d prepared for this one,” he sighs, sounding partly regretful, but also mildly amused.

“I can see if Theon and Robb brought theirs,” she teases.

“Don’t you dare,” he hisses.

“What? Theon’s the one—” he cuts her off with a kiss.  He doesn’t like thinking about how it was Theon that had first put the idea in Arya’s head.  To be fair, Arya didn’t much like it either, because she didn’t like the mental image that Theon had given her about his and Robb’s sex life.  But neither of them could quite deny that things had gotten undeniably more interesting once they’d learned just how quickly Gendry came with something in his ass—and how uncontrollable it was if he was inside her at the same time.

“But did you bring one for wedding night sex?” she asks, and he groans again and shakes his head against her neck.  “Oh, well that was silly of you.”  She brings her fingers back to the elastic of his boxers and tugs them down around his thighs, and he rolls off her to help her take them off, his cock bobbing as he moves and as Arya throws his boxers to yet another corner of the room.  She pumps at his cock and feels the wet leaking from the tip down his shaft.  

Arya smiles and kisses the underside of his chin and she feels his hands flit from her breasts to her shoulders.  He knows where she’s headed, so he doesn’t exactly push her, but she knows what he wants.  Knows all too well.  She kisses her way down his chest, her hands still pumping at his cock.  She pauses to rub her teeth lightly against his nipples, to dip her tongue into his belly button, to suck a hickie onto his hip because she wants it there when he says his vows to cherish her forever tomorrow afternoon.  

She skirts around his cock, kissing along the seam between his leg and his pelvis, brushing some of his hair with her nose.  She kisses down to the underside of his thigh, then grabs his knees and bends them high and tilting up his pelvis before kissing her way down to his ass, licking light circles around the whole while he moans quietly and breathes deeply.  

“Really too bad we weren’t prepared,” he manages to say while she licks.

“Something for Monday,” she replies, pressing one last kiss before licking her way along the crevice until she finds his balls with her lips.  She sucks them lightly into her mouth, rubbing her tongue along the flesh—tighter now that he’s waiting for her, and tasting of his sweat.  She hears him gasp, and feels his legs shift next to her shoulders and the brush of his hand against her hair.   She glances up to see his hand pumping lazily up and down his cock, a finger lazily circling the tip of his cock every time his hand reaches the end.  She watches him for a moment, letting her tongue work lightly while she watches Gendry’s hand slide up and down, over and over again and she shifts slightly, the swollen lips between her legs rubbing against one another.  

She releases his balls from her lips and almost at once his hand falls away.  She kisses her way up his shaft, murmuring, “Yeah, something for Monday.  I’ll fuck you blind on Monday.”

“Not tonight?” he teases.

“Well, I need you to see tomorrow,” she said dryly, her tongue darting out of her mouth and tracing the tip of his cock.  Arya suddenly has this moment where she knows—knows down in her gut—that when she’s saying her vows tomorrow, she’ll be thinking of this, of those seconds before she is about to suck his cock into her mouth as deep as it will go.  She watches as a spot of wet pools there for a moment, growing larger and larger before dribbling down the side of his cock, and wonders if the same is true for Gendry.  She catches it with her tongue, and licks along his shaft again.  Then, without any preamble, she drops her mouth over him, sucking him in deeply.

Gendry groans and his hands are in her hair, gripping her tightly as her head bobs over him, sometimes sucking him in only a little bit, circling his tip with her tongue, other times dropping her lips down to the base of his cock because at some point over the years she’d lost her gag reflex while blowing him.  

“Arya,” he moans as she traces her tongue along the vein on the underside of his dick.  “Aryaaaaaa.”

She smiles as she kisses the tip of his cock again, feeling him dribble a little more pre-cum against her lips.  “Do you want me to suck you off completely, or did you have something else in mind?” she asks him.  She licks him clear of pre-cum as he sits up on his elbows, thinking, watching her.

“Well, you’ve already blown my plan out the window.”  She rolls her eyes at the pun, and he grins at her.  “I don’t know…wait…yes I do.”  And his eyes turn wicked and his cock is gone from her lips as he sits up and scoots down the bed towards her, his cock glistening with Arya’s saliva.  Arya watches it, then lets her gaze drift up his stomach with its rippling muscles to his chest with its thick, dark hair, to his lips and his flushed pink cheeks.  

She straddles him again, kissing him hard, the taste of his tongue so soft and sweet after the tangy flavor of his pre-cum.  Her hand fumbles between them and she finds the tip of his dick again and circles it, feeling Gendry swallow as she does.  He shoves aside her underpants and rubs fingers along her slit, circling the flesh near her clit very lightly but not actually touching her and Arya ruts into his hand and moans.  But even as she moves her hips more vigorously, her clit never quite finds his hands and she stops kissing him to glare.  “That’s not fair,” she tells him, and he laughs.  

“What’s not fair?”

“That you’re—” he cuts her off with a kiss at the same time that he lightly pinches her clit and she gasps as pleasure shoots through her and she feels herself go limp for just a moment.

“That I’m what?” he asks.

“Shut up.”

“No no.  I’m curious.  What were you going to say.”

“I can’t remember.”

“Liar,” he laughs and dumps her onto the bed next to him, then hooks two fingers into the bottom of her underpants and drags them down her legs, depositing them on the floor at the foot of her bed.  He spreads her legs and runs fingers up and down her slit again, and Arya lets herself fall back against the blankets, biting her lip to keep from moaning as he kisses just along the side of her knee, his stubble scraping the skin there as he kisses his way up, and up and up until…

Arya makes a sound somewhere between a hiss and a sigh, and she spreads her legs as wide as they’ll go and tilts her pelvis up so that her clit is as close to Gendry’s tongue as it’ll get.  She breathes as slowly and steadily as she can, doing her best not to let the tremors shooting up from her cunt affect her in anyway, because if she doesn’t let it…well, it’ll just be better in the end, won’t it?

She opens her eyes and looks down at Gendry, his dark hair between her legs and she realizes—

“You’re not kneeling on the floor, are you?”

He is.  He looks up at her, and his eyes are dark though she can’t tell if that’s because his pupils are dilated or because it’s after midnight and all the lights are off and you can’t really make out different eye colors in the dark.  It’s a stupid thing to think.  But she’s tired, and her mind has been focused on…other things.

“Yeah?” he says, and there’s something mildly amused in his voice.

“Well, come on then,” she says, and she scoots back.  “Those are hardwood floors.  That’ll make your knees mad at you tomorrow, and you’re not a young man anymore.”

“Oh, thanks,” he snorts, but he gets onto the bed, and Arya twists so that she’s lying diagonally across it, allowing him more room to lie down.

But he doesn’t lie down.  Instead, he sits down next to her, and grabs her hips and tilts her sideways and kisses from the side.  It doesn’t quite work as an angle, in truth, and Arya’s about to say so except he scoots himself even farther up the bed and she realizes exactly what he’s thinking and a moment later, she’s straddling his face while she bends her head to suck his cock back between her lips, her hands on either side of his legs, holding her up as she rocks back and forth against his tongue.

As much as she’d tried to make it all build slowly, she finds that she can’t as she’s hovering on top of him.  The stiff tips of her nipples are brushing against his stomach, and his cock fills her mouth so much that trying to control the breath coming in and out of her body is a pipe dream.  And—to make matters worse—she realizes that Gendry, lying on his back as he is, has a great advantage over her because he doesn’t need to hold himself up at all—or even really hold her up.  Instead, one hand holds her hip and the other presses fingers inside her, one, then two, then a third, and with each finger he inserts he nips at her clit lightly and as the orgasm hits her so hard that she sees stars.  She releases his cock and leans forward, gasping, trying to buck her hips away from Gendry’s lips because it’s too much, but his hands—he can fucking hold her there, and he does.  Gods, he’s keeping her there, and she can’t breathe as the second orgasm hits her right as the first one is beginning to wind down.

She collapses, and he lets her this time, lets her roll away from him across the bed, warm and mushy, her heart pounding in her chest.  

“So, I know you said you weren’t going to fuck me blind, but that’s your business.  I came here to fuck you blind, so I did,” Gendry says, grinning.  
Arya makes a noise because it’s all she can manage.  Her cunt is still twitching and every time it does, her heart jolts and she feels warm everywhere, even in her toes, even in her finger tips.  

She feels the bed move underneath her, and Gendry’s hovering over her.  He kisses the tip of her nose, then his lips find hers.  “Do you mind if I…” his voice trails away.

“Guhuh,” Arya manages, and he snorts.

“Was that consent?”

“Yes,” she says, and he presses into her.  She keeps twitching around him, and she opens her eyes long enough to see him grinning about it.

“You enjoying your handiwork?” she asks dryly.

“Oh yes,” he says, and he kisses her again, his tongue licking along her lips.  His breath is coming faster now, and she has a feeling he’s close.  She cups his chin in her hands, then moves them down his chest, tracing along his hip bone until she finds the crevice of his ass again.  “Arya—” he begins, and she sighs, because she knows they don’t have any lube.  She circles him, though, circles him in time with his pumping, and she brings her legs up to rest on either side of his torso because she knows that will make her tighter and he chokes out a gasp and she feels wet heat filling her as his lips find hers again and his hips go still.

At some point, he rolls off her and they lie on top of Arya’s blankets together, breathing and staring at the ceiling, their fingers twining together lightly.  When, vaguely in the distance, Arya hears some clock striking one in the morning, she turns to him and says, “You should go.  You know…”

“Wedding superstitions,” he says, and he sits up and looks around.  He finds his t-shirt nice and quickly, but he can’t find wherever it was that Arya threw his boxers.

“Where’d they end up?” he asks her.

She grins at him wickedly.  “I don’t know.”

“Arya,” he intones.

“I don’t.  Your guess is as good as mine.”

He raises his eyebrows and gets to his feet, throwing the t-shirt over his shoulder.  “Well, I give them up as lost, then.  Goodnight,” and with a cheeky grin he turns and walks out of her room, buck naked.

Arya laughs to herself as she wriggles under the blanket, and wonders whether it’s bad luck to wear your husbands boxers under your wedding gown.


	69. colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for akosiroxy

it’s not that she’s warmth spreading through him (though she is.  he knows warmth.  warmth is a sword that’s been cooling, warmth is his hands after he’s flattened metal against an anvil, warmth is a brick hearth that’s been empty for hours now).  it’s that she’s color.

when he’d first met her, she was a scrawny thing, pale, dirty, dressed as a boy.  a sheep like the rest of them in a world where shepherds aren’t necessarily safer than wolves.  it was with her that he first saw how colorful the world could be.

tobho mott had taught him how to color steel, how to use enamel and minerals and the like.  but what reddened steel was like the red of falling leaves as the they rode through the riverlands together.  how could the yellow and orange of leaves be as bright as flame if they did not burn?  it was because she was there with him.  or at least, she thought she did.


	70. on dick pics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for insomniarama

“he’d be perfect for you, arya, that’s all i’m saying,” madge says, winking.  arya rolls her eyes.  she doesn’t like it when _anyone_  gets their nose into her private life, this is not the sort of conversation she wants to have with her boss of all people.  he’s probably blonde and green-eyed like madge, and she doesn’t _want_  to date anyone blonde and green-eyed because then they’ll remind her of joffrey.  she doesn’t say that though.  she just nods and smiles.  

“you’ll have to introduce us at some point and i’ll let you know,” she manages.  she can be polite, at least.  she can say hi to him, or something, and then let him down gently.  

madge makes a delighted noise.  “i’ll send him a text and have him meet us for lunch.”  arya resists sighing.  

she pulls out her phone and scrolls through her texts while madge types.  there’s a text from gendry there.  she’d asked him for one the night before, but had fallen asleep before he’d sent it.   _if madge’s son has a dick like gendry’s i’ll give him a shot,_ she thinks.  it’s hard, and long, and thick, and they’d not been together for more than one night, but he’s always perfectly happy to send along a picture whenever she asks.  his hand lazily rests at the base of it, and she wonders if he knows that she likes it when his hand is in the picture because it makes her remember that he knows how to use them.

why hadn’t they been together for more than one night?  

“arya?” madge says and arya darkens the screen of her phone instantly, and hopes to _hell_  madge didn’t know what she’d been looking at.  “shall we?”

“yes,” arya says, steeling herself.  “all right, then.”

they make their way to the restaurant and find a table by the window, madge making a point of sitting next to arya so she can sit across from her son when he arrives.  “let an old woman dream,” madge says, patting her on the arm, and arya wants to sink into her chair.  she thinks about gendry’s dick.   _moral support?_ she wonders, half-sheepishly.

“hey, mum,” comes an all-too-familiar voice and arya feels herself stiffen.  she twists in her chair and is staring right at his navel and oh god.  oh god.  

“gendry!” madge says and she gets to her feet and gives him a kiss on the cheek.  “thanks for coming.”

“course,” he says, and arya can hear a grin in his voice.  “and this is…”

arya looks up at him and her face is as red as a ruby but at least his is too as his eyes bug out of his head and his hand clenches around his phone and now she’s imagining it around his dick and his dick…she’d asked him to send her pictures of his dick for the past six months and…

“nice to meet you,” he says with a firm look in his eyes, the _don’t you dare tell my mom, don’t blow this please_ look.

“and you,” arya says with a strangled voice and he sits down across from her, and both of their faces are bright red.

“love at first sight?” madge asks, and arya chokes on her water, and begins to pound her chest while gendry makes indistinct noises.


	71. the dog walker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for tesadoraofphaedra

“why aren’t you taking sam?” arya asks.

“because sam wants to laugh at me.  that’s why he got me the damn tickets.  you will appreciate the dog themed art,” jon says.  he looks nice, if a bit frumpy and arya rolls her eyes.  she pets nymeria and gives her a goodbye kiss on the nose before grabbing her coat.

“dog themed art?”

“dog themed art,” jon sighs. 

arya loops her arm through jon’s and they go downstairs to the waiting uber and a few minutes later they’re cruising downtown, arya leaning against jon and looking as he swipes through pictures of ghost on his phone.  “and this is when he got into ygritte’s underwear drawer.”

“i bet she didn’t like you laughing and taking a picture rather than saving her underwear.”

“yeah well, i had a vested interest in her not having underwear, didn’t i?”

“it’s the middle of winter, jon, that’s a dick move.”

“she’s from the north.  she’s made of sterner stuff.”

“ass,” arya says, swatting him.  

she pulls out her phone and shows him a picture of nymeria nuzzling into a toy elephant.  “the dog walker gave her this.  he really likes her.  leaves funny notes about her and everything.”

“aww,” jon says, and arya keeps swiping.  there’s one of nymeria chewing on a beach ball, and another of her standing on talea’s chest, refusing to let her up until her face had been licked clean of whatever it was nymeria thought shouldn’t be there.

the gallery is full of dog pictures.  some of them are artsy, some of them are ridiculous and jon and arya squee together quietly because everyone else there seems to be there more for the art than the dogs.  (weird.)

it’s when they’re practically salivating over a pug in a tutu painted to look like the sugar plum fairy that arya sees him.  he’s tall, and dark haired, and wearing a tight t-shirt and a sportscoat and arya has to remember to breathe for a second because he’s definitely…just wow.  and she might or might not subtly edge her and jon closer to him to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“…capture the motion and energy really well…” an old woman is saying.

“i walk dogs,” the man says, “so you get a lot of character out of animals from doing that.  it’s really an incredible source of inspiration.”

 _he walks dogs_ , arya thinks, and imagines him with nymeria.  she doesn’t mean to imagine him naked and letting nymeria back into their bedroom after she’s banged him vigorously, but oops.

“do you ever paint the dogs you walk?”

“well,” he says, and arya watches as his eyes drift to a painting.  “i shouldn’t…at least not without asking permission.  but there’s one i really like.  total hell bitch but she’s a sweety, you know?”

and arya does know.  knows even before he finishes speaking because she doesn’t have to look for more than a second at her goofy girl’s face before she hears herself say, “gendry?”


	72. Jessica Jones AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for insomniarama

“Who are you?” the bartender asks as he slides the whiskey across the bar to her.

_I’m no one._

_No I’m not.  Fuck you._ She takes a sip.

“Name’s Arya,” she says.   _Got that asshole?_ she tells a ghost.   _Got that?  You can’t control me.  Not anymore._ “You got one?” she grunts at him.

“Gendry,” he says.  

It’s a bit of a blur, after that, but Arya’s used to a blurry world at this point.  She’s used to the dulled sensation that alcohol brings to her as she tries to forget.  How _kindly_ he’d been to her, that’s what he’d always told her.  How kind.  Controlling someone until they don’t exist anymore.  She likes how gruff Gendry is.  She knows he’s gruff–has been watching him for a while.  She likes it better when they end up back at his apartment and–it turns out–he’s so vigorous in bed that–if she bruised–she might have had bruises on her cervix.  

He doesn’t try and cuddle her after.  She likes that.  She doesn’t like it when people try and cuddle her– _period_.  The only exception to that has only ever been Jon.  Instead, he turns his back to her and it’s not long before he’s snoring, and there’s something oddly comforting about that.  She’s not alone.  And _he’d_  never once snored.


	73. Star Wars AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for saeratargaryen

It’s so bright here, above the clouds, and that makes Arya more nervous than she wants to admit.  She’s always felt too exposed in the brightness–ever since Winterfell was blown to bits, the only home she’s ever known.  Worse–they shouldn’t be there.  They wouldn’t be if the Bull didn’t need repairs.

Gendry comes into the room, as close to a smile on his face as she’s ever seen it.  “Ship’s almost finished,” he announces as she crosses to him.  “Just a few small things.  Lem says it’ll only be a few more hours and then we can get out of here.”

“Good,” Arya says.  “I don’t like it here.  And _no one_  has been able to give me a straight answer about Hot Pie and Lommy.”  They’d gone off on their own and had vanished completely.  If Arya trusted Lem as far as she could spit, that would be one thing, but she didn’t, so having had no word… “They’re _not_  the type to disappear on their own without warning us first and this isn’t just them getting lost I–”

The words die in her throat as Gendry places his hands on her shoulders and kisses her forehead.   _If he thinks just because we kissed in the Bull_ , she thinks even as he says, “Relax.  I’ve known Lem forever.  He’s not jerking us around.  I know it.”

“You know it?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest.  She doesn’t step away from him, though.  Her feet don’t let her.  “Because I don’t trust Lem.”

“Well I don’t trust him either.  He _is_  my friend.”  Arya snorts.  “Besides.  We’ll be out of here soon enough.”

“So long as Hot Pie and Lommy–”

“We’ll find them.  Now relax,” he repeats.  But Arya can’t shake a lurking bad feeling, as though something’s…

No, she’s being silly.  She knows she is.  And what sort of person thinks in phrases like _dark presence_ or _disturbance in…_ in what?  She has no training in the Force–not the way Jon does.  

She takes a deep breath, and another, then looks at Gendry.  He gives her that same half-smile and backs towards the door.  “See?  Going to find Hot Pie and Lommy.”

_Why do I feel like this is the last time I’m going to see you?_

Jon’s always telling her to trust her feelings…


	74. private time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for ourfuriosa

“hey, you want to go down for a pint?” gendry asks, banging the door to arya’s bedroom open.  

gendry’s never had the best visual memory, but even as he slams his hand over his eyes and lets out a “fuck sorry!” he knows it’s no good.  he’s seen her, knees bent, blankets kicked down to the bottom of her bed, a tuft of dark hair and a silvery thing that buzzes and her hands…her skin…her teeth on her lips as she chews it…

his hands still over his eyes, he stumbles back, knocking into the door he’s just banged open, even as he hears arya let out a yelp in surprise and horror and the buzzing goes quiet and he fumbles for the doorknob to push the door closed.

“you could fucking knock!” arya yells at him.

“i know! i know!  i’m sorry!” 

girls weren’t supposed to jack off.  but somehow it doesn’t surprise him that arya would.  at four in the afternoon.  

the sight of her is burned into the underside of his eyes, the exact position of her hand at the top of her slit as she presses the silver thing–the _vibrator_ , he makes himself think–in and out of her, as it glistens and…and fuck he’s getting half-hard.  half-hard and humiliated.

“are you still out there?” he hears her call through the now-closed door.

“no,” he says unhelpfully.

she snorts and the door opens and she’s there, in underwear and an over-large t-shirt.   _one of mine._ she must have grabbed it on a day when she was out of laundry.  he’s seen her in just her underwear before.  but this is different.  he knows she’s wet now.

he thought she’d be glaring at him, but she’s not.  he thought she’d be shrieking at him, but her silence is even worse.  

no–no it’s not.  what’s worse is the way her eyes flick down his chest to his half-hard dick and then back up to his eyes.  her pupils are so dilated.  she arches an eyebrow.  

gendry licks his lips, feeling himself flushing. she’s not…is she?

she grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him towards her, and a moment later she’s walking him back into her room, kicking the door shut behind her.  she’s pulling off the shirt, and his hands find her breasts and he’s not sure how, not sure why, not sure if this is a dream or not, but when they fall onto the bed together, he feels just how warm she is and, when she takes his hand and slides it in between her legs, how wet.


	75. kingsguard au

“ser gendry.” 

“how’d you know it was me?” he asked.  his voice is a rumble in his chest.  arya wonders if it’s the same voice he’d had when he was sixteen.  she can’t remember.  it sounds the same, but then again, bran is a man grown now and she still hears his boy’s voice when he speaks.

she shrugs.  it’s easier than saying she smelled him with nymeria’s nose.  nymeria’s not even here.  he’d think her a liar, even though she’s not.

it’s raining, and she is sitting under the weirwood her father had once prayed at, that she and bran had once climbed together.  she is dry, but gendry.

“never thought i’d see you in a white cloak,” she comments, looking at it.  he looks down too, a chagrinned expression on his face.

“it’s bloody stupid.  the queen just likes the idea of me wearing it.  her bastard cousin and all that in the kingsguard.”

“you accepted it,” arya points out, and he looks at here.

“aye.  i did.”

“why?” she asks.  he’s standing over her now–so tall.  he’d always been tall, even when she’d been a stupid little girl.  

he doesn’t reply.  she watches him closely.  she’s good at reading faces–always has been, but gendry’s face is in shadow right now and she can’t quite make out his eyes.   _eyes tell you all you need to know about a man_ , she remembers a waif telling her.  

the wind blows, and raindrops fall from the leaves overhead onto arya’s head.

“well?” she asks him, doing her best to tease.  “or did you forget?”

“might have,” he mumbles.  

“what’s that supposed to mean?”  he just shakes his head, and arya rolls her eyes.  “really?  we were more to each other than that.”

“more than you know,” he whispers, and it might be the wind, and the humid coolness of the air, but goosebumps break out over arya’s skin.  there’s something in his voice she’d not thought to hear.  “but it’s no matter.  i can’t have it, can i?”

“can’t have what?”

“anything,” he says, tugging at the cloak.

“you’re one of the greatest knights in the land, wearing that.”

“funny…i don’t feel it.”

“what would you feel instead?”

it’s not silent at all–not with the pattering of rain on the ground of the godswood, on the surface of the hotsprings, the wind that blows and their breath.  but the loudest sound by far is gendry unclasping the white cloak and letting it fall to the ground as he sits down at her side, and leans against the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because some people asked--[here are some additional headcanons for this 'verse](http://valiantnedspreciouslittlegirl.tumblr.com/post/140722176718/do-you-have-moreany-headcannons-for-kingsguard).


	76. bunnies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for tumblr user fat-walda  
> technically in the same verse as [fall](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5328746)

“it’s so….fluffy.”  there’s wonder in her voice.

“careful now, you don’t want to crush it,” arya says as the bunny wriggles in little lyanna’s hand.  her niece immediately loosens her hands as the tiny baby bunny makes weird squeaky noises.  

lyanna is five, and gendry and arya are giving jon and ygritte an anniversary present by taking their daughter out of the house for a day.  it had been arya’s idea to have them go to a petting zoo.  gendry had never been to one before, and he hadn’t quite known what to expect when they’d come to grenn’s farm.  probably sheep or something.

certainly not baby bunnies wrapped in swaddling cloths and kittens mewling, and a goat in a diaper that kept chewing on the clothes of the person who climbed into its stall to pet it.  

“you can pet it, lya,” arya says gently to her niece.

“but what if i drop it?”

“will you drop it?”

“i don’t think so,” lynara says.

“then pet it.  come on.  right on the nose.  feel how soft.”

lynara makes a noise of delight, her grey eyes wide and a gap-toothed smile spreading across her face.  arya chuckles delightedly, and presses a kiss to the top of springy black curls.

“uncle gendry!” lyanna says, holding the bunny out to him.  “pet it! it’s so soft!”

gendry looks at the bunny.  it’s probably the size of his thumb.  well, not quite that small, but very nearly so.  with a single finger, he reaches out and pets the baby bunny between the ears.  “oh!” he hears himself say.

“see?” lyanna sounds delighted.

“yeah, that’s soft.” he says, hearing the surprise in his own voice.  

“have you never played with a baby bunny before?” arya teases.

gendry shakes his head.  “nah.  never been to a petting zoo before.”

“you’ve never been to a–” arya sounds appalled.  she goes over to the little cage and snatches up a swaddled bunny baby and brings it over and presses it into his hand.  “there.  hold this.  all your ails will go away.”

the bunny is quivering in his palm, and he looks between it, and arya.

“is there a reason that it’s all swaddled up like this?” he asks her.

“so it doesn’t poop all over you,” arya says, and he snorts.  “also to keep it from moving suddenly and ending up in trouble.  bunnies are hoppers.”  she pets the bunny in his hand.

“see?  we both have one!” lya sounds delighted.  “and you, auntie.  you need a baby too.”

arya grins and gendry’ stomach lurches and even though he knows he shouldn’t he imagines that the bunny in his hand is a baby, and that he and arya…

her eyes are on him, he can feel them, and he knows she knows exactly where his mind went.  he knows.  he gulps and looks at her.  

it never gets old–seeing the warmth there.  never gets old.


	77. Far From the Madding Crowd AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for justwinginoverthings; accompanying gifset [here](http://valiantnedspreciouslittlegirl.tumblr.com/post/144328462623/for-justwinginoverthings-i-hes-seen-a-fair)

**i.**

he’s seen a fair number of people riding in his life, but none ride quite like that.  it’s like she’s a part of that horse, like her spirit is soaring as she races over the hills.  she’s not going anywhere.  he can see that much.  she’s riding because she likes the speed, or the wind in her hair.

he’s not much of a rider himself.  he can ride, of course, but he’s quite sure his face doesn’t light up when he’s on horseback the way hers does.  he’d certainly not think to lie down flat on his back when some low hanging branches would knock him on his arse. 

but she does.

she does just that and he shouldn’t watch her like that.  she’s not his to watch, but there’s such pleasure in her face as she lies back against her horse’s rump that she doesn’t even notice when her scarf catches on a branch as she dashes off again.

later–much later–when she’s walking through the hills, he calls to her and she comes to him, a look of calm curiosity on her long face.  

“this is yours,” he tells her, and hands her the scarf.  


“oh,” she says, smiling.  then her smile widens even more.  “you’re farmer smith, aren’t you?”  


“yes.”  he’s surprised.  he doesn’t know her name, but she knows his.    


“i’m arya stark,” she tells him happily, tying the scarf back around her neck.  “i’m here helping my cousin jon with the harvest.  thank you for returning my scarf to me.”

it surprises him how quickly they become friends.  she sits with old george while he works on training george.  he shows her about sheep and they walk together through the hills, laughing and talking about everything, talking about nothing.

sometimes he thinks he sees her watching him, kind grey eyes crinkled in the sort of smile that makes him wonder how he had ever gotten to be this lucky.

**ii.**

“mr. smith, there are things to consider,” she tells him, wishing very much that his face hadn’t fallen quite so much.  gendry’s her friend, after all, and she hates the idea of making any of her friends hurt, or disappointed.

“is there somebody waiting for you?”  


“no, but that doesn’t mean i’ll marry you.”  his face twitches, and she can tell that it takes all the force of will he has in him to say look at her and say, “good day to you, then.”  


he hurries off, leaving her with a lamb in her arms.

he’s halfway up the hill outside when arya runs after him, calling, “i didn’t say i wouldn’t marry you, either.”  she’s panting from her run–she hates corsets, they’re ridiculous, but all the dresses she owns requires them and it makes it that much harder to run when you’re running after someone.  “i hadn’t really ever thought about it.”

“i have a hundred acres, and two hundred sheep,” he tells her, his face alight with hope.  “if i pay off the money, the farm is ours.  you could have a piano in a year or two.  flowers, and cucumbers, and a baby or two–”

“mr. smith,” she tells him, looking away.  a _baby_.  that seemed so far away from anything she’d ever imagined for herself.  she’d never imagined anything close to marriage.  and yet here he was, telling her that she could be his and easily suggesting children.    


“i will always be there for you,” he promises, and she looks at his earnest face, and shakes her head.  


“mr. smith, i don’t want a husband,” she tells him.  “i’d hate to be some man’s property.  i shouldn’t mind being a bride at a wedding if i could manage to come out of it without a husband.”  


“that’s stupid talk,” he tells her.  his face is so very serious, and arya sighs.    


“you’re better off than i am, mr. smith,” she tells him.  “i have an education and nothing more.  you could do much, much better than me.”  


she brushes the hair out of her face, and feels her own smile fading.  “i’m too independent for you,” she tells him.  “if i ever were to marry, i’d want someone who could tame me, and you’d never be able to do it.  you’d grow to despise me.”

he shakes his head, a sad smile crossing his face.  “i never could,” he says.  he turns away.  “goodbye, miss stark.”  and he continues up the hill.

**iii.**

god must be playing a trick on him.  first his dog chases his sheep over a cliff, then he loses his home and his farm, and now, the first place he could really hope to find work–

“it was my uncle brynden’s,” arya tells him as they walk from the barn–still smoking slightly, but safe thanks to him.  “and when he died, he left it all to me.  i wasn’t expecting it,” she says, looking around.  the house is big, and stately.  he wonders if it’s like where she came from, or if it’s very different.  “it used to be one of the best farms for miles and now look at it,” she sighs.  “it will be again, though.  i’ll make it.”  she smiles at him, and he smiles back.  


her smile has always been warm for him, and he feels oddly proud of the way that she greets her tenants.   _i’d hate to be some man’s property_ , he remembers her saying that day on the hill.  she’s not _his_.  but _his_  is the only way he can think of her smile.  his not the way a hat is, or a house.  his the way a dog is–friendly with everyone but you know you’re special and don’t have to worry.

they work hard that spring.  gendry’s always liked hard work, and even when he’d let himself dream of marrying her, he’d never thought their life wouldn’t be full of work.  he tends to the sheep and she manages the farm as if she’d been born to do it.

he sees what she’d meant on that hillside.  she is far too independent.  he can’t imagine anyone commanding her simply because they wouldn’t have enough power to bend her to their will.  what heart she has–the warmth and affection she shows her tenants, the kind stewardship with which she leads them.  and what strength.

but she’s wrong–he would never hate her for that.  he never could.

**iv.**

it had been a joke between her and willow.  a bet–a book flung in the air and if it landed open the valentine would be sent to miles from town and if it landed closed, arya would send it to theo smallwood, whose acorn hall neighbored her riverrun.

she’d not expected it to go quite like this.  theo was twice her age, and had a serious face.  once he’d had a mother that arya remembered having met as a girl, and a sister who was married somewhere in the west country.  if she’d not expected gendry to propose marriage, she had certainly not expected theo to do so, for everyone knew that he was as aloof as could be–or shy.  “he was jilted when he was younger,” willow had told her.  

it makes her stomach squirm when she looks at him, face so excited at the prospect of marrying her, knowing that her stupid prank had gone awry and now she’d gone and made a fool of him.   _i’m jilting him now, i know_ , she thinks as he promises her protection, dresses, even a piano.  she smiles in spite of herself.   _why must all men promise pianos?  do any of them even know what it is that i want?_

“i have a piano, and i have my own farm.  and i have no need for a husband,” she tells him.  “no matter how honored i am by the offer.”    


it does not wipe away the sadness and humiliation from his face.  “mr. smallwood, i’ve made you miserable,” she says.  “it was very wicked of me, and i do apologize.”

“will you reconsider?”  


would she?  she didn’t know.  why was it that men only ever thought of marriage, and she only ever thought of her farm.  wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?  she remembered telling gendry that she was too independent and he’d grow to hate her.  “let me think,” she tells him.  

and theo smiles.  

**v.**

“what’s happened?” she asks.

“broke the fence and ate the young clover.  made their stomachs swell,” tom tells her.   


“well?” she asks.  


“they’re blasted,  the whole flock.”  stress drips from his voice, and arya closes her eyes for a moment.   _the whole flock._  


_i’ll leave tomorrow,_ gendry had said angrily the night before, and how she’d wanted to slap him but how his words had hurt her far more than any slap could hurt him.  and now the flock…

lem’s going on about a way to maybe save them, to pierce holes in their ribs and let some of the air out, but none of them knows how.  only gendry does.  only ever gendry.

“tom,” she turns to tom.  “go and find him.  tell him that he must come back.”  


tom rides off and arya sinks down by the sheep.  it’s wheezing and all she can think of is the little lamb that gendry had given her when there’d only been smiles and laughter between them and no memories of rejected marriage proposals, and no fury at the way she’d behaved towards theo smallwood.

when tom returns, he doesn’t have gendry.  “where is he?” she asks.  “couldn’t you find him?”

“yes miss,” tom says as he dismounts.  


“so what did he say?”  


“he said,” tom looks around nervously before continuing, “he says you’re to go to him in person and ask him civilly in a proper manner.”  


arya’s jaw drops.  “where does he get his airs from? i’ll do no such thing!”  


“he said you might say that…” tom ducks his head apologetically, “and he said i was to tell you that beggers can’t be choosers.”  


it’s anger as much as desperation that makes arya march towards the horse and mount up and ride down to road as fast as the beast will go.  

when she finds him sitting under a tree by the rode, the anger fades away.  he’s there–he’s not gone just yet.  seeing him there makes it so much more real that he’d actually been going, that she might not ever see him again, for all that she’d shouted at him the night before that she never wished to.  all was not lost.

“mr. smith.  gendry,” she begins, and she means for it to be an apology, but that’s not what it ends up being.  “please don’t desert me, gendry.  i need your help.”    


and he gets to his feet, and mounts her horse.

“make room for me,” she says and he does, and they ride together at full speed, her heart pressed against his back, and she knows that everything will be all right.  


**vi.**

she goes to him.  he tells her not to, tells her that he doesn’t trust him, that there’s more to him than meets the eye, more to him than a red coat and a sabre, but she goes to him anyway and comes back mrs. elmar frey.  

it hurts.  over the years, they’ve come to trust one another.  she’s come to trust him, and his opinions and his advise, and this isn’t like mr. smallwood, this is a whole different matter.

mr. smallwood had done no more or less than gendry–he’d asked and she’d said no.

elmar had kissed her, and then married her, and then…

gendry doesn’t want to go inside for the wedding celebration, though the whole farm’s invited.  but the winds are high and there’s thunder in the distance.  a storm–and a bad one from the looks of it.  so he does go inside, because arya needs to know.

“miss stark,” he murmurs to her but before he can continue.  


“ah ah,” mr. frey interrupts him.  “you’ll address me.  and it’s _mrs. frey.”_  


“there’s a storm,” gendry says to neither of them in particular.  he can’t look at her and he certainly won’t look at him.  “we risk losing the harvest.  i’ll need five or six men.  no more than that.”  


“how bad is–” arya begins, but frey cuts her off.  “it won’t rain,” he says.  “not on my wedding day.  my wife wouldn’t have it.”  


so gendry leaves.  he’ll do the bloody thing himself if he has to.  

it’s almost a relief having the work by himself.  climbing up and down haystacks and fighting the wind.  

“what can i do?”  


he isn’t surprised–not at all.  she has a way of doing this, of appearing out of nowhere.  she always wants to help and tonight she looks beautiful in the moonlight.  beautiful, and miserable.

“you can–” he begins but thunder rolls and lightning flashes and arya lets out a panicked yell as she jumps in surprise and loses her balance and falls.  gendry yells her name and lunges across the top of the bale of hay and grabs hold of her wrist.  

“hold onto me,” he tells her, pulling.  she’s heavier than he’d have thought.  she’s always seemed so small, so light, but she’s heavy in the wind and darkness.  “hold on to me.”    


he pulls her up, and she clings to him, and lets out a sob.  

“gendry i’ve been a fool,” she tells him, “i’ve done what i swore i’d never do.  but he told me about another woman, who was prettier than me who he loved before and i couldn’t bear it.  so somewhere between jealousy and distraction, i married him.”  


gendry doesn’t know what to say.  it’s worse knowing the truth of it.  if she’d loved him, truly loved him, that would be different.  but she doesn’t.  she doesn’t love frey at all but he has her.   _i’d hate to be some man’s property._

as if frey would ever see her as anything but that.

**vii.**

_that woman, dead as she is, is more to me than you ever were, are, or can be._

she’d known he was a mistake.  but that didn’t make his words any less crushing.  that didn’t make his death any less horrifying.  

for all his flaws and failings, for all the way he tried to command her, to try and take what was hers, that he felt such guilt over fanny’s death that he would swim to his grave was more than arya could bear.  

she persists, though.  she wore her blacks for she did mourn him–she mourns the excitement in her heart when he’d first kissed her, mourns the fleeting moments of happiness they’d shared, mourns what they could have been, mourns what they had become.  she mourns him, and it is mourning, she reminds himself, when debtors call and ask after money elmar owed them.  

_that woman, dead as she is, is more to me than you ever were, are, or can be._   


arya does not rage or shout.  she works.  she works tirelessly.  the she manages the farm, she helps in the fields, she puts in as many hours as any of her hands do.  and they, seeing how hard she’s working with them, do not abandon her.

she suspects that gendry rallies them.  he’s always on her side.  he’d promised her once that he would leave one day–before she’d gone and married elmar–but he hadn’t.  he wouldn’t.  he cared for her too much, which made everything that much more confusing.

she mourned elmar, and theo promised her protection and the financial aid she so desperately needed to keep her farm, to pay all her workers and arya didn’t know what she wanted.  all her life there were men asking her to be one thing or another and all she wanted to be right now was free.

but she couldn’t be–not so long as she had responsibility over the lives and livelihoods of her tenants. 

did being responsible mean marrying theo?  

he had asked her again.

gendry never had.

**viii.**

“do what’s right.”

that’s all she had ever tried to do.  he knows that.  he’s always known that.  it’s part of what’s made him so angry with her, when he’s been angry with her.  that she has forgotten that, forgotten what it is to be her, to be arya and she comes to him for reminding.

“do what’s right.”  

even if that means breaking his heart, and hers, because somewhere along the way, theo smallwood, kind, noble, theo smallwood who only tried to do the right thing as well had gotten in the way and he mustn’t be hurt.  more than gendry, he mustn’t be hurt.  he cannot bear it when she hurts him…or at least, he shows it more than gendry can.

she leaves him in the middle of the dance floor, and smallwood looks at him.   _what did you say?_ he seems to ask, and gendry doesn’t know if he cares.  smallwood, who’s won and who knows he’s won and has even _told_  gendry that he knows that he’s won, canwork that out for himself.  gendry watches him follow arya out of the room, then glances at the young women arya had told him to flirt with.  

the thought makes him sick.  

it’s a party, a celebration, but he cannot celebrate–not christmas, not anything because tonight is the night he truly loses arya.  he’d thought it was when she’d married frey, but he was wrong. it was always going to be smallwood–smallwood, who would let her stay herself so long as he could have her too.

_i’d need someone who could tame me._

and she’d found him.

gendry goes to find his coat and as he’s leaving out of the front door he hears a gunshot and arya’s screaming and his heart lurches, because smallwood’s holding a gun and arya’s on the ground.

it takes him a moment to see the blood-red coat underneath her, and to register that her sobs aren’t sobs of pain but sobs of confusion.

**xi.**

it wasn’t too late.  she wouldn’t let it be too late.

she rode, rode as she hadn’t in ages, not since the last time she’d had to bring gendry back, not since she’d first met him near jon’s.  

she calls to him when she sees him, bag slung over his shoulder.  

questions swirl in her mind–is it money? does he want more from her that she could give because she’d give it, and gladly.  is he angry with her over elmar, over theo?  or something else entirely?

“why are you leaving?”

“i said i’d leave you one day,” he says calmly.  that day he’d told her not to go with elmar.  yes, she remembers.    


“you must not go,” she tells him.  


“you forbid me?”  


“yes, if you like,” arya says, stepping towards him.  “i forbid you.”  


he smiles wistfully, and turns away slowly.

“wait–” she begins and he stops.  “thank you.  you’ve believed in me, and fought for me and we’ve been through so much together…wasn’t i your first sweetheart?  and weren’t you mine?  and now i have to go on without you.”  


he swallows.  “if i knew…” her heart stops.  “if i knew that you would let me love you and marry you.”

“but you will never know.”  


“why not?”  


“because you never _ask_.”  


“would you say no again?”  


“i don’t know.  probably.”  he laughs, and she does too, just because he is.  “so why don’t you?  why don’t you ask me?  ask me.”

he doesn’t ask her.  but he does kiss her in the morning light and the only sound is his breath and the birds, and the only warmth isn’t from the sun rising but from his heart beating against hers. 


	78. from tumblr smut meme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anidlebrain

gendry’d thought he’d known everything there was to know about this.  not because he’d done it lots–he’d barely done it at all in truth.  but because you spend enough time around lem and tom at some point you just assume that everything’s possible.

so when arya had dropped to her knees in front of him, he’d known what to expect–the soft wet heat of her mouth, her tongue along his shaft, circling the tip of his member until he couldn’t help but dribble a bit onto it, the way her eyes looked when she gazed up at him.

what he hadn’t expected–hadn’t thought to expect, hadn’t realized anyone could do, or would do without being asked, was the way she pulled him from her mouth, kissed her way down the underside of his shaft until she reached his balls and then drew them into her mouth because gendry hadn’t realized that was a thing that anyone did–much less princesses, much less nobleborn girls, much less girls who weren’t like girls so much as wolves–but it was, in that moment, all he wanted and he prayed that she’d not stop–not just yet, not just yet.


	79. from tumblr smut meme #2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for insomniarama

the just hadn’t moved.  they’d started by the sink, kissing because sometimes you just start kissing, and the mood was right and he was there, and suddenly she’s sitting on the thin stretch of counter between the sink and the rest of the kitchen.  it’s not enough space to properly balance, and her skirt is damp underneath her, but not enough to be really and truly distracting while gendry looms over her, his hands at the small of her back so that she doesn’t fall backwards and ram her back against the faucet.

“this was a bad place for this,” she whispers to him, her hands gripping the counter as tightly as they can while he slides in and out of her.  “like really not a good place.”

gendry snorts.  “yeah i’m getting that,” he says.  and his hands drop down under her ass and she lets out a yelp as he picks her up and carries her over to the kitchen table.  “better?”

“i was thinking the bedroom,” she says, kissing his neck, her hands resting on his chest for a moment.

“yeah, but i’m not coming out of you just yet and i’m not carrying you that far, so this’ll have to do.”

arya rolls her eyes.  “you’re ridiculous.”

“it’s what you like about me,” he says and he rocks his hips and arya sighs and leans back on her elbows and lifts her feet so that they are resting on the edge of the table and she can push herself onto him as far as she can go.


	80. from tumblr smut meme #3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for meereareed

it’s just so convenient, that guys underwear has that handy dick hole in it.  she knows it’s for peeing, but she’ll take what she can get and gendry–she’s sure he will too.

she loves the way he runs his hands through her hair when she takes him in her mouth.  she loves the way he cups her face, the way his hands won’t stay _still_  while she’s sucking on his balls, her hand pumping over his dick still wet from her saliva.  she loves the way he groans when she tongues his tip, the way he tastes, the way he breathes hard and rocks into her face with increasing need.  she loves the way she looks up at him and he’s watching her, his eyes hooded, his pupils blown, his cheeks flushed.

she’s heard girls complain about sucking off their guy before.  sansa’s complained about a stiff jaw and a lack of reciprocation, and gendry gives arya a lot for her jaw to be stiff over.  but she knows looking up at him, her fingers holding his base and running against the flannel of his boxers–soft, but not as soft as the flesh of his penis against her lips–that by the time he cums in her mouth he’ll more than make the stiff jaw worth her while.


	81. from tumblr smut meme #4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for maybemirai

they need to be quiet–need to.  no one can know.  not that no one knows that they are special to one another, that there’s something between them–that no one can know _this_.  

gendry bites back a groan as he thrusts into her, her skirt hiked up around her legs, her hands holding tightly to his hips with a grip that shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does, given that he’s seen her at her swordplay.  every thrust into her, sends a jolt through him, makes his heart pump faster, makes him all to aware of the space between them.  

she squeezes around him and god that is amazing, just how she can grip him like that down there.  he groans again, even as she does it again, and she sits up slightly and his lips find her throat while he raises a hand from his grip on the table to run through the dark curls over her sex, finding soft moist flesh–softer than anything in this world.

she gasps and trembles for a moment, and he feels himself twitch within her.  he rubs his finger over her sex again, and suddenly her sex is clenching around him and she’s biting her lip to keep from crying out, her hands holding onto his hips so tightly that he thinks he may bruise. 

and just like that he’s coming too, his kiss turning sharp as he pulls himself loose from her and waits for his blood to stop pumping in his ears.


	82. Arya X Gendry Week: Jealousy

she’s the last one to make it home.  her sister, her crippled brother, her bastard brother–they had all made it to winterfell before arya had, and when arya leaps from the back of her wolf and pelts herself into her older brother’s arms, clinging to his doublet and holding him so tightly while he buries his face in her hair, gendry feels ill.

he shouldn’t.  he shouldn’t feel ill.  jon’s her brother, after all, and she loved him.  it’s all she’d been able to speak of through the winter winds whipping at their face, just as she’d only been able to speak of robb in the riverlands in autumn.  jon snow had brought a sparkle to her eye, and a hope to her voice that gendry…

he’d thought he was special.  he’d thought he was different.

and when she’d hugged him when they’d first reunited, he’d truly believed it, truly felt it.  she didn’t hug anyone that way, she didn’t care for anyone else that way.  he was her dearest friend, her best friend.

but he’s nothing, _nothing_ , compared to jon snow.  he can see that.  he can see from the way that arya’s wrapped her arms around jon’s neck, and he’s twirling her about, and he can see the expression of sheer bliss that covers her face.  she’d never looked so blissful with him.

_of course not stupid, he’s her brother.  
_

_what am i?_

gendry looks away.  he looks at the flock of wolves that arya had shepherded north on the back of her own hell bitch, he looks at nymeria, who is rolling like a playful pup in the snow with a white direwolf, he looks at the grey walls of winterfell, that they’d finally reached after so very long.

 _this isn’t my place,_ he thinks.  _it never was going to be._ he’s never had a place.  he thought he had.  he thought he’d had a place in her heart.  and he does.  _but not the one i wanted._

he looks at the gates of the castle.  he could leave.  could find somewhere new to be.  he’s a knight, and…but no.  no, the idea of leaving her is even more unbearable than the idea of her loving jon snow more than she could ever love him.

“gendry!” arya calls, and his head snaps back around.  she’s not hugging jon anymore, and her hair is a mess, and her silver eyes are sparkling.  “come meet jon.”

and who is he to deny her anything?  so he trudges through the snow, knowing that there’s a great big glower on his face, and he doesn’t bloody care.

“jon,” arya says, “this is my friend gendry. he–” but she stops and she looks at him, and he looks back.  her eyes are still bright from her joy at seeing jon, but the laughter has faded from her face.  he watches as her eyes–they don’t go dull, but they do go something else.  not dark, but deep.  she swallows.  twice.  and gendry says, not looking away,

“she saved my life.  several times.”

but arya’s shaking her head, shaking it hard, as if it’s not true.  “thank you,” she whispers, and suddenly her arm are around him again, squeezing him tightly.  “thank you for coming with me.  for being my pack.”

he doesn’t know what to say to that.  he doesn’t have any idea.  but for the first time, he lets himself look at jon snow, standing there hands at his side, with arya’s long face and dark eyes, and he sees guarded curiosity there–and gratitude as well. 


	83. arya x gendry week: protect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> technically me going to school [on my own shot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2260959/chapters/8080923)

gendry’s never been charming.  not ever, not once.  it’s a miracle, frankly, that he won his games because he was the most unlikable bastard in the ring, that’s what everyone had told him.  “you won because you’re strong, and because your clever,” varys had told him during the victor’s interview, “do you have anything to say to all of the sponsors who _didn’t_ send you help?”

gendry hadn’t responded.  he hadn’t known what to say.  he’d just glared into the camera, and varys had laughed, and made some comment about how the arena hadn’t changed him.

the arena had changed him.  he had dreams still, of lommy greenhands and his compound fracture and the way he’d died screaming that he yielded, of the way that dunsen had stolen his fucking helmet within the first two days, of being so hungry that he’d dug bugs out of the earth and watched as the muscles that steel-working had given him faded into next to nothing.

the arena had changed him, but he didn’t show that change to anyone.

and the arena changes him again now, even though it’s been seven years, even though he’d promised himself he’d never get invested in any of the other tributes because they’re all calves for slaughter anyway.  it changes him because for the first time in his life, he needs to be charming.

* * *

arya stark’s got more people skills in her left pinky than gendry has in his entire body, but that’s not enough.  she’s clever, and quick, and is taking care of a twelve-year-old girl who’d had the misfortune of being reaped right on her twelfth birthday.  arya had done the stupid thing that gendry had told her not to and gone straight for the cornucopia the second the games began, but she’d made it out with a sword, some rope, and food, and had even killed one of her assailants, even if it had only looked like an accident.  her grey eyes had gone wide as she’d backed away from the boy who was clutching his stomach, pricked by her sword as she was, and gendry had started shouting at his screen that she needed to run.

that boy was her only kill so far–the rest was a matter of surviving.  she’s resourceful, careful about what water to drink, and when, and even manages to steal food from some of the careers when they aren’t paying attention.  she’s quick as a cat, and somehow always is calm under pressure, but gendry sees that she doesn’t get much attention from sponsors.

she’s small.  she’s a girl.  she’s seventeen, yes, but she’s got a weasel-faced child who never seems to stop crying in tow, and that is slowing her down.  she’s not a good investment.  she’s not.

so gendry has to grit his teeth and be charming.  because it’s getting harder and harder for arya to find water, and if she doesn’t have enough she’ll die parched.

* * *

he’s not used to this.  not used to rubbing shoulders with sponsors the way he has to now.  he’s seen the way some winners handle it.  loras tyrell, who’d won the year before him, is beautiful and smiles, and he and renly baratheon manage to get all sorts of provisions sent out to the boy from their district.  gendry wonders how it is that they can look into these people’s faces without feeling boiling hate, the way he does.

but no.  no, that’s not how to be charming.

how to be charming?  how does arya do it?

gendry focuses on her.  “how long do you think she’ll last?” one of the sponsors asks him.  he’s old, and drunk, which explains why he’d even begin initiating a conversation with gendry.  

“she’ll last longer than you think she will,” he says.  _she needs to,_ he thinks, but he doesn’t say that.  

“is that so?” thoros asks him.  he looks at the screen on which arya is sitting with weasel.  they’re skinning a rabbit that arya had caught earlier that day, and gendry’s relieved to see her eating.  she’s so thin, and there are dark circles under her eyes.  

“yes,” gendry says.

“she wasn’t ranked very high in the skill test,” thoros says.

“they underestimated her,” gendry says stubbornly.

“what do you know that i don’t?” thoros asks, bemused.

“she’s got heart,” gendry says.  “more heart than anyone in that arena.”

thoros looks at him through heavy-lidded eyes, and nods slowly.

“heart,” he mutters.

that night a little silver parachute lands on the ground next to arya.  water.  she has water.

* * *

the careers are good at what they do, and gendry is horrified when they split up arya and weasel, and then manage to kill the younger girl.  arya stares up into the sky as the cannon explodes and a picture heralds her friend’s death and arya grits her teeth.  

_it’s the hunger games,_ gendry wants to tell her, _you lose whatever friends you make in the hunger games._ that’s why he had tried to leave everyone behind when he’d been in the arena, and he still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to have hot pie and lommy following him around until they weren’t.

but that night, when he’s rubbing shoulders with sponsors who are celebrating the careers’ victories, he manages to smile when renly baratheon asks, “what’s she going to do now, without her little friend.”

it’s the smile that spooks baratheon.  he’s glad about that.  _charming be damned,_ he thinks angrily.  “she’s going to hate,” he says calmly.  

more water for arya that night, who, as if she’d heard gendry’s words, or as if he’d somehow magically read her mind, begins to list off their names, one by one.  “gregor, polliver, tickler, raff the sweetling…”

* * *

clever matters more than strong nine times out of ten.  gendry had learned that in the arena.  he’d been told for so many years that the only thing that mattered were his muscles and his shoulders being as broad as they are, but in the arena–that helped, but strong meant nothing if you couldn’t think.

gendry knows he’s clever, but he’s never seen anyone half-so clever as arya in the arena.  clever and brutal.  it takes another two weeks before she’s won, and when she comes out of the arena, gendry’s waiting for her with a blanket and some fruit.  she’s pale, and thin, and her face is gaunt, and she can’t look him in the face, and avoids the news cameras as much as she can.  

she sits in her room and stares out the window for a long while, and gendry sits with her quietly.  he doesn’t know what to do, or say.  he was the first victor out of his district in ages, and arya’s the only other one who’s won so long as he’s been around.  

“you’re safe,” he tries.  he tries, at least, just like he tried to be charming, even if he was bad at being charming.  this much is true.  she is safe.

“there’s no such thing as safety,” she tells him, her voice hollow.

“you made it out,” he tries.

“did i though?  or do i have to be like you and watch people die every year knowing i can’t help them, just like i couldn’t help weasel.”

gendry doesn’t know what to say to that.  “you’re not alone,” he tries, and for the first time arya looks at him, as if she’s suddenly remembered that he’d been in an arena once too.

slowly, her cheeks flush and she ducks her head.  “i’m not alone,” she whispers.  “i’ve got my family.  but…”  gendry waits for her to keep talking, and she trembles, biting back tears.  “but they won’t understand.”

“that’s what i’m here for,” gendry whispers.  he reaches out a hand to pat her on the shoulder, and to his surprise she gets up and comes and climbs onto his lap, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing into his shirt.  he holds her for a long time, holds her and is glad that someone is there to hold her.

he’d not had anyone.

* * *

“you won,” varys says, smiling into the camera, “because you’re quick, and clever.  do you have anything to say to the sponsors who sent you help along the way?  to the people of westeros who were cheering for you because you were an underdog in the arena?”

arya cocks her head, thinking.  she’s got a smile on her face, but her eyes are hard.  _are you going to be brutal?_ gendry wonders.  he’d not bothered trying to hide his brutality, but arya is charming.  she’s always been charming, and she knows where she’s standing now and why.

“no,” she says.  “i don’t have anything to say to them.”  she smiles sweetly into the camera, and her smile turns hard, “but i do have something to say to president bolton.  but i’ll wait to say that in person.”


	84. arya x gendry week: you'll be back

nights fall sooner and sooner, and there’s a chill in the air that gendry’s not felt in years.  he remembers winter when he was a boy, remembers being cold, and his mother finding him roughspun woolen things to wear to keep him warm, and telling him he was lucky to have them.  “more than you deserve, too,” she’d always be sure to add before sending him on his way.  

gendry doesn’t have roughspun woolens now, but lem’s going to find him a cloak to wear.  gendry hopes it’s not a lannister one.  he doesn’t want to think about what she’d say if she came back and saw him wearing lannister crimson.

 _when she comes back,_ he corrects himself.  because she has to come back.  she has to.  this inn’s right smack dab on the road north to winterfell, surely she’d be back.  

he turns in his bed and scrunches his face and tries to shake the thought from his head.

jeyne says he obsesses.  she usually says it quietly, under her breath, and almost guiltily.  and just to prove her wrong, he tries not to think about arya, and when she’ll be back.

he likes jeyne–and willow too.  they’re nice enough.  and what’s happened to them and to their family is sad, and when he pauses to think on it, he always ends up trying to make it better.  it was the knightly thing to do, after all–try and help those under your protection.   _she’d make a better knight than anyone, then, coming after me like that._

it’s not a helpful thought and he twists in his bed and pulls the blanket around him.

willow’s already asleep on the far side of the bed, and jeyne’s not come in yet at all.  she doesn’t sleep much.  she has bad dreams.  she’s probably downstairs sitting by the fire, staring into it, not quite praying (she keeps the seven), not quite dreaming.  she gets lost in thought when she stares at the fire, the way that arya did.

and there she is again.  gendry curses himself internally.   _she’s just a girl,_ he thinks angrily at himself.   _she’s your friend, though._ it’s almost her voice that says it in his mind.  he can see her now, annoyed and rolling her eyes, or chewing her lip nervously, or angrily or–

 _she didn’t want me to leave,_ gendry reminds himself.   _she bloody didn’t, and i was–_

 _my life is not arya stark’s though,_ he thinks firmly.   _my life is my own.  i can choose what i do with it.  it’s not her._

that’s how it always goes, his thoughts.  wanting her to come back, angry at her for running off into the night like that, the dull ache that came from knowing the only person who truly understood–because even when she _didn’t_  understand, she got it better than anyone else did–was gone, and he didn’t know if he’s ever going to see her again.

and there he is again.  thinking about her as he falls asleep, like he’s some lovesick boy.  he’s not lovesick.  she’s his friend, and he’s worried about her.   _the bloody hound has her_ , and everyone knows what the hound does.  he’s the mountain’s brother, after all.  the same bad blood runs through his veins, and he has arya.

his heart pounds in his chest, and that’s when he decides he can’t think about her anymore for the night.  no imagining what sandor clegane might be doing to her, no worrying that she might be dead, no memory of tom singing that bloody song at acorn hall, no glimpse of her coming after him right after he’d been taken captive.  he refuses.  not now.

he tries to empty his mind, and he hears willow’s snuffling snores, and glances over at her.  she’s asleep in the bed, lying on her side facing the window, her back to him.  when jeyne comes upstairs she’ll crawl between them for a few hours, and gendry will wake before either of them, hard as a rock, and go down to make everyone breakfast and–

willow’s asleep, and he could be quick.  he could be quick, and he wouldn’t be thinking about arya.

he could be thinking about that girl bella from the peach, or _anyone_  he liked.  some girl he makes up, with dark hair and laughing eyes, who tells him to smile because she likes the way his smile lights up his face.  she tells him he’s strong, that she likes his helmet, that she likes the sword he’s forging.  it’s a fantasy, so she can say whatever he’d like her to say, but somehow it feels all wrong, even as his hand pumps up and down his shaft, trying to move as little as possible because he’s sure if he moves the bed at all, willow will wake up, and see him, and ask what he’s doing.  

 _it’s wrong,_ he thinks.  but he can’t place why.  and he’s not letting himself think of anything but this girl in his dreams, who’s young, but old enough to love.  she’s got breasts, and hips, and long legs, and skin that’s clean, and pale.  she kisses him, and wants him–wants him to stay with her, yes that’s it, and wants to stay with him always because somehow people always end up leaving, or shoving him away, but she won’t do either, she won’t.   _what sort of stupid idea is it, leaving you?_ she asks, sounding like she’s _trying_  to laugh, but can’t quite hide how seriously she’s taking it.   _i couldn’t.  not even if i wanted to._

 _i couldn’t either,_ he buries his face in her neck, and she holds him close to her.   _stay with me,_ he tells her.

_stay with me.  i could be your family._

his hand has callouses on it.  he wishes it were softer, if only to feel softer.  he doesn’t think she’d have soft hands.  she’d use her hands for something, though he’s not sure what.  she’d have callouses too, so maybe it is her hands in his mind as he strokes himself.  maybe she plays with swords too, carries one around with her.  maybe she’s good with it–as good as a girl can be–and that’s how she knows what to do as she pumps her hand along his cock, and looks at him with eyes like the moon, grinning and–and–

he comes on his stomach, long hot trails of seed, a rush of warmth that washes away the chill of the autumn night.  he breathes, and listens to the sound of his blood pumping in his ears, his heart slowing steadily, and when he can only hear the rustle of the trees and willow’s snuffling snores, he rubs the blanket over his chest and turns his back to willow so he’s facing the door, curling up into a ball and wishing that he didn’t feel quite as alone as he did at that moment.

because he’s not alone.  he’s not.  he’s not he’s got willow, and jeyne, and all the children that fill up this bloody inn.

but all the same…he’d felt less lonely when it had just been the three of them on the road under the stars.  

 _she’ll be back,_ he tells himself.   _she has to be.  she’ll be back._


	85. arya x gendry week: whisper

it started as a joke.  a drunken whisper of _if i didn’t make a point of not fucking my friends–well what’s the point of that–are you saying you’d–might be–might be…_

started as a joke because her sitting on his lap wasn’t abnormal, not after all these years, after all the times that hot pie had told her _are you sure you don’t have a thing for gendry–i don’t have a thing for gendry–because the banter is more than my shipper heart can take–your shipper heart?–look i fandom ok we have terms and shit–i don’t know if i want to know–you definitely don’t stay off tumblr you’re better off for it_ and when she was lightly tipsy he was so very warm and there especially after the sunset and it got notably cooler outside even in summer even on the beach withe the breeze coming in off the lake.

it started as little enough, as _jesus your tits are nice–you’re one to talk–i don’t have tits–no but you do have pecs which is the equivalent–i’ve never seen girls talk about pecs the way guys talk about tits–well you haven’t been listening properly sweet jesus–yes–get that smirk off your face–make me_ and a kiss that lasted slightly too long, and tongues that weren’t quite sure if they were supposed to make that kiss passionate because it was just fucking ok it wasn’t anything like that sometimes people fucked their friends and it was just getting something out of their systems and things got back to normal.

it started as a whisper _like that–yeah like no a little higher–there–yes there you can put more pressure on i won’t break jesus gendry oh oh god oh_  and somewhere along the way it stopped being words and started being other things–the way arya’s crotch ached the next day because he’d been the first to take her up on her words that she wouldn’t break in a whole string of lays, the way that she could still hear the sounds of him inside her not the gasping for air or the groan he’d made as he came but the wet sound of him sliding in and out of her of her wet for him, the taste of his sweat on her tongue.

it grew louder every day it seemed, louder and louder and _god gendry god please yes oh god_ and him holding her feet wide as he licked at her, or her wrapping her legs around his hips, or the one time he took her from behind and she felt him so deep inside her she was sure that nothing had touched her there before except gendry.

she’s not sure what it is anymore.  she still sits on his lap, and he’s still warm when she leans against him a little bit drunk.  they still laugh, and she’s quite sure that hot pie still ships them or whatever the fuck his tumblr fandom terms are.  she’s not sure because she’s fucked people before, and she’s been in love before too, she thinks, but fucking people and loving people never made her stomach writhe quite so much as seeing gendry look up from his beer and see his eyes go soft because he sees her watching him, and then sees them go dark with some sort of promise and arya doesn’t know what this is.  

she’s not frightened of it though.  of that she’s sure.   _you’re sure this is ok–yes i’m sure it’s ok–i don’t want to fuck up our friendship–just take your damn shirt off already will you–arya i’m serious–it won’t because neither of us will let it right–yeah but–it’s going to be fine gendry–but what if it’s not–we’ll make sure it is._ and it is.  it is.


	86. arya x gendry week: laughter

it’s not like everyone in the universe isn’t already playing this game, but arya notices pretty fast when it’s _always_ the same asshole from team valor who keeps booting her out of her gym. she notices because it’s always the same bloody tauros, every single time.  or, in some cases, three or four of them.  she doesn’t know why he likes them so much, but that’s the way of it.  she supposes she shouldn’t be surprised.   _bullknight._ that’s his user name.  it’s a dumb user name, she decides the third time that he sends her arcanine back to her for revival and claims the gym by the subway stop.

“it’s just a stupid game,” sansa tells her, and arya rolls her eyes.  her sister doesn’t get it.  sansa had never played pokemon growing up.   she’d preferred playing the sims on their dad’s computer for nine million hours, building people and houses and making them fall in love and then getting bored and making new ones.  

“whatever,” arya says, tugging on her sneakers.  

“arya it is eleven thirty.”

“nothing’s going to happen,” she replies, shrugging.  they live in a safe neighborhood.  and she’s been out plenty later and plenty drunker than this and nothing had happened.

“people are targeting people playing that stupid game,” sansa says, “it was on the news.”

“yeah i’d like to see them try,” arya snorts.  "see you in a bit.“

"look, let him have the gym and claim another one.”

“that’s not how the game works.”  and it certainly wasn’t how arya worked.   she’d been the first person in that gym and goddamn it she’d claim it and send _bullknight_ and his fucking tauros back into the dirt where they belonged. _  
_

 _it would be someone from team valor,_ she thinks as she jams her hands in her pocket, one hand clasped around her cell phone, waiting for the telltale buzz that would notify her if a new pokemon (probably another zubat) appeared to be captured.  she wishes that they let her fight her pokemon against the zubats.  that was a better way of leveling up, rather than catching them and stealing their candy and then sending them to shady professor willow to turn them into glue or whatever it is that he does with them.

her arcanine would make quick work of a lonely zubat in the middle of the night.

she gets to the gym–a daycare three blocks from her house–and pulls her phone out of her pocket.  she selects her arcanine, her marowak, and her dragonair–the strongest of her bunch and prepares for battle.  

the only good thing about the way they have gyms set up, she thinks as she mashes her thumb against the screen of her smartphone, is that it’s not unbelievably hard to defeat gyms.  she screws his tauros nice and fast and leaves her three pokemon at the gym before turning and making her way home.  she stops to collect another rattata–experience points, she reminds herself because she’s tired of rattata–and sees…

“goddamnit,” she mutters and turns back around, reviving her three pokemon and spraying potions on them.  she reaches the gym.  she sends her pokemon to attack the three tauros that are sitting in the gym again and puts her phone away, looking around because he has to be close.   _maybe he lives across the street or something?_

“look, i know it’s a matter of your pride,” he says, “but i’m gonna keep kicking you out of this gym so long as i’m playing this dumb game so is it really worth it?”

he’s tall–much taller than she is.  and muscled.  his black t-shirt stretches over his chest and if it weren’t for the fact that they’re playing _pokemon_ , she might consider herself nervous that a stranger is talking to her on the street.  but it’s _pokemon_.  and he’s not that scary.

“it’s not a matter of my pride,” she says.  "my gym.  mine.“

he snorts.  "if you like,” he says.  "for the honor and prestige of team instinct.“

"team instinct’s got nothing to do with it,” she says hotly.  half her office is making fun of her for having picked it, but arya doesn’t care.  they can all talk about how team mystic’s the best and most scientific or whatever, but arya had liked the way they’d phrased the team description.  and zapdos is the shit.  "someone from team valor would say that.“

he rolls his eyes.  "why’d you pick yellow?  like your pikachu too much as a kid?”

“do you see me with a pikachu?” she snaps.  "why do you only use tauros anyway?“

"i like ‘em, don’t i?” he says.  "just like you like that arcanine.“  he pauses.  "and for what it’s worth, i picked valor because i played red growing up.  brand loyalty.”

arya groans.  "now you’re sounding like half my colleagues talking about personal brand and twitter.“  

that makes him laugh.  "ah yes.  my personal brand.  tauros and the color red and pokemon.  anything else i should add?”

“muscles?”

he considers for a moment, then shrugs.  "i’ll accept that.  gendry, by the way.“  he extends his hand, and arya shakes it.

"arya,” she says.

“what’s nymeria?” he asks curiously.  "is that how you pronounce it?“

arya nods.  "favorite character in a book growing up,” she said.  "it was my name in my gameboy games too.“

"nice,” he says.

“bullknight?”

“i like bulls.  personal brand, remember.”

arya groans good-naturedly.  it’s funny–when she’d first seen him, he’d been angry, and rough, and she might have been nervous if it weren’t for pokemon.  but now he seems…well…

“are you going to be my gary?  is this what this is?” she asks.

“why do you get to be ash?” gendry demands.  

“because i’m scrappy, and i thought of the metaphor first.”

“fine.  but i don’t like it.”  he looks down at his phone, where she’s sure he sees her three pokemon sitting in the gym.  "i’ll let you have this one for tonight,“ he says.  "gotta live up to the chivalric portion of my handle, i suppose.”

“yeah, as if you don’t know i’d be out here all night beating your ass.”

“you sure you picked instinct?  that seems like a very valor thing to say.”

arya snorts.  he doesn’t say anything, and arya looks down at her phone.  he still hasn’t challenged her pokemon.   _this could be a trap,_ she thinks, but somehow, she knows it’s not.

“well,” she says, “goodnight, then gendry.”

“smell you later,” he says and arya bites back a laugh as she turns towards home again.


	87. arya x gendry week: command

_let me tell you something about wolves child…_

* * *

arya sits on nymeria’s back, her eyes closed, her ears alert, her fingers digging into the fur of the great beast beneath her.  she hears panting behind her, hears the crunch of paws against snow, hears the heartbeat of the wolf pumping underneath her.

there’s no wind–everything is perfectly still, and arya breathes deeply.  

somewhere, they are fighting.  just not here.  not yet.  not until she hears the horn blow, not until he can hear the crackle of the flames.

* * *

_sometimes i think i was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest.  
_

* * *

arya opens her eyes.  she’s heard a snapping sound of a branch falling, unable to bear the weight of the snow any longer.  behind her, she hears the sound of two wolves growing agitated, impatient, not wanting to be still any longer no matter what their bitch queen commanded them.

nymeria’s tail flicks once and they settle.

they settle until arya moves them forward, until she sees gendry’s nightfires.

* * *

_someone was shouting her name, harwin probably, or gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills, half a heartbeat behind the lightning.  
_

* * *

there’s a difference between dragonfire and nightfire.  arya can smell the difference.  one is brighter than the other.  in the distance, she sees the bright yellow light of dragon flames.  jon is there.  jon is driving them towards the wolves from dragonback, just as arya had planned.  

there are archers with dragonglass arrows, and warriors with dragonglass spearheads and dragonsteel and dragonsteel armor on daenerys and arya has nothing but needle and wolves, but that is all she needs.

that, and gendry’s fire.

* * *

_the bull shouted, “behind you,” and arya spun.  
_

* * *

this one is dimmer next to the bright dragonflame.  a dull orange, a dull red.  _i’m coming behind you,_ arya thinks as she leans forward.

he’s waiting for her.  his men are the anvil that jon’s men are riding towards, but all that will change when arya arrives.  the battle will be different when arya moves to gendry’s side, and she doesn’t know how, and she prays that it will work, but she trusts that it will, because everything turns out all right when she and gendry are side by side.

nymeria lets out a howl, and arya charges forward to the song of a thousand wolves.


	88. two and one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for gameofshipschallenges

Two, and one.  They are two and one.   Arya feels it in many ways.  Her eyes are sharper when she wears Nymeria’s skin, her nose is sharper in her own.  When Nymeria is enraged, it feeds into her own, when she’s at play, Nymeria is playful. 

_Winter is coming_.  She’d said it for years, the words of her house, and ever since the storms had stopped and the darkness had faded, winter came more regularly, and with it… It is frigidly cold in Winterfell.  Frigidly cold, but Arya is in heat.  It’s different from when she usually desires him, a gentle need that goes away if she wills it to.  Now she _must_ have him, and every fiber of her body, every pound of flesh, every bone needs him inside her, hard and fast.

She drags Gendry to her room after supper, her lips on his, her body so close to his that it is as though she is trying to pull him into her, onto her, she doesn’t know.  She doesn’t say a word, doesn’t let him say a word as she tugs his tunic and shirt over his head, as she shucks off his breeches.  She steps on his toes to help him pull out of his boots.  She sucks at his neck as his hands find the ties in her bodice and pulls them loose so the gown pools at their feet.  Her teeth are strong. She pulls Gendry towards the bed, and he falls on top of her.  He wants to kiss her slowly now, kiss her gently, but she doesn’t want that.  That’s not enough.  She tries to roll him over, but he won’t let her, he’s too heavy, and he’s not ready just yet.  She lets him kiss her, her hands finding the flesh of his ass and she pulls him closer, so close that the heat of his skin against her skin might match the heat in her body.

Two and one.  

They are two and one, and she’s never let the weak mount her, never let the little grey cousins, pack as they are, mount her.  But the white is fierce, even if he is quiet, and when he mounts her, she does not throw him off, though she makes a show of trying to.  She does not want to throw him off.  Their pups would be strong, and he does not try to take her place as alpha, he only mounts, and pumps into her and if Arya can feel Nymeria, can he feel Ghost?  

Arya presses up against Gendry, presses up, arching her back, her breasts rubbing against the hair on his chest, and she feels him inside her but he’s not inside her and it’s not enough, she needs him, needs Gendry.  She feels the white inside her, but Gendry is not the white, and is she growling or is it Nymeria? He’s on his hands and knees now, and she flips over so that her face is against the bed for just a moment, before she rises to her own hands and knees, forcing him up higher.  She reaches behind her, between them, and finds him hard, and she guides him towards where she feels the white, where she needs him now, fast and strong. He fills her up, and she collapses her elbows, pressing her face against the blankets as he begins to pump behind her.  His hands are on her hips and he grunts as he moves in and out, as his balls swing against her flesh.  She hears her own wetness as he pushes in and out, feels the skin of his legs against the skin of her own, the two slapping together, two and one, two and one.

The white finishes, but Gendry is not done and Arya moans and ruts back against him.  The white has pulled away, but the heat is not gone, and she howls into the night, begging for more.  But there are no more.  It’s just her and the white.  Just her and the white and Gendry, who has heard her cry and he is moving faster now.  One of his hands sliding across the seam of her hip to find her nub as he goes faster and faster, and he presses into it and she cries out, already collapsed against the bed, his hand holding her hips high against his the heat rolls in waves through her, as her mind aches and her body rejoices because the heat is not gone, but Gendry is not done.   In and out, in and out, two and one, and she curls up in the snow and growls at the smaller greys that approach her.  In and out, and in and out, and Arya bucks her hips back against him again, rising onto her forearms again, then onto her knees, grabbing a bed post for support.  

Gendry gasps behind her, and the hand at her nub rises to find a breast as she twists her head to kiss him.  Him.  Gendry.  Not the white, Gendry, whose hips have shifted with her new position, who is sitting back on his knees now and thrust into her anymore, so she thrusts onto him, sliding onto him so neatly, feeling him fill her up again as she rocks her hips back and forth. But that is not enough for him.  She can feel it in the way his breathing has slowed, in the way that he’s caressing her–almost gently, so she slows too, almost painfully, until he pushes her forward again and he’s on his knees, his hand at her hips and he’s in her as deep as he can go, as fast as he can go, as hard as he can go and when Arya yells again because the heat has risen again and her body has clenched again, he groans with her and it’s not the white she feels it’s Gendry.   It’s not just Arya who collapses against the bed, it’s the two of them, two and one. Gendry is still inside her when he pulls her against his chest.  She can smell his sweat and his seed and her own scent too, though the heat fades and the wolf fades and it’s her and Gendry, warm and smiling, and when she turns to kiss him again, it’s slow, and sweet.  


	89. locked in

“We’re locked in.”

“You’re sure?”

“Look–come on, it’s so freaking obvious man.”

“Oh come on–have you been reading shipping manifestoes again?”

“ _No._   Martin literally said we were going to meet again.  He literally said he had plans.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t get that five year gap he was planning.  You’re gonna be like….twelve.”

“And you’re gonna be my arm candy.  You’re gonna wait until I’m older.”

“Yeah, ok, if we live that long.”

“We’re gonna live that long.”

“You probably will.  You’re one of Martin’s favorites, he isn’t going to kill you off anytime soon.  I can totally see myself dying to cause you more pain.”

“Don’t say things like that.  Why would you say something that stupid?”

“I’m just being pragmatic.”

“You’re waiting in an inn for me, and if _The Winds of Winter_ ever comes out again, we’re going to be canon.  It’s locked in.”

“It’s really not.”

“Locked in.”


	90. You came back

“Arya.”

“Shut up!  Just shut up!”

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t even look at you right now, I’m so mad.”

“Arya will you just–”

But she’s already slammed her way out of the apartment and Gendry takes a deep breath and throws himself onto the couch.   _God damn it_.  Him and his big mouth all over again.

But a moment later, Arya’s bursting back through the door and his heart leaps.  

“You came back,” he says at once, making to get to his feet.

“Stay where you are, I’m still mad at you.  I came to get my wallet.”

“Your–”

“I’m getting pizza.  We’re still fighting.  Goodbye.”

And she’s gone again.  Gendry stares blankly at the wall for a moment, then turns on the TV and goes to the fridge to grab a beer.  

Forty minutes later, his phone buzzes.   _I forgot my keys.  Let me in.  You can have some of the pizza.  I’m still mad at you._


	91. summer child, winter woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anidlebrain's birthday

_summer child_ , is what bran has called her. 

it is summer now, and arya had forgotten what it had been like when she’d been a girl, the way the sun just doesn’t set over the moors, but lingers low in the sky, like some warm eye looking down at them from the heavens.

when she’d been a girl, she had complained of it.  when the sun was out, you weren’t supposed to sleep, and how many times had her mother had to come in and sit with them, and shutter the windows until arya would drift off to sleep?  she remembers those nights clearly enough.  she remembers nights of sansa telling her to stop fidgeting, because when arya fidgeted, she tugged at the blankets or kicked her sister by accident, and how annoying she was, how stupid not to know that you had to lie still to go to sleep.

it’s different now, of course.  she doesn’t share a bed with her sister, and she doesn’t have a mother to shutter her windows and block the sun away so she can sleep.  some nights, she doesn’t sleep at all.  she tries, of course.  she does try.  but somewhere, over the years, she had learned to run while exhausted, and she sometimes has trouble convincing her body to truly sleep.  wearing nymeria’s skin isn’t sleep after all, and the wolf is too old to run as fast as once she’d done.

it’s a long twilight in summer.  there’s a peaceful stillness to it.  the work on the castle halts, the smallfolk return to their homes, the guards stand upon the walls, but it’s quiet.  somewhere birds chirp, for birds stay awake with the sun.  

when she looks out of her window, she feels a child again.  a naughty child, mud-covered and unladylike, and up too late.  but no one will tell her that now–not even sansa.

arya rises from her bed and pulls a cloak over her shoulders.  quiet as a cat, she passes through the halls of winterfell, passing a guard here or there, who she nods to before she passes out into the lichyard.  she walks through the gate, through the dim light of the summer night, through the mist rising from the ground.

she doesn’t know where she’s going.  she doesn’t have to.  she can go where she wants.   _winter woman._

how long she walks, she does not know.  she loses herself in the sound of the birds, in the wind that rustles through the grass, in the memories of her father on his horse, of jon and her mussed hair and a smiled little sister.  she lets the air fill her lungs, sweeter than the air in braavos, gentler than the winter winds that had made her throat go raw and which had stung at her lips.

 _i am alive,_ she thinks, and it’s a stupid thought because of course she is.  she’s been here for years now, and safe.  but as she stares out over the moors, at the pink and purple sky and the red sun, there’s something that doesn’t quite fit.     

 _summer child…_ she looks over her shoulder.  there is no mother to sigh and tell her one more story, arya, no father to smile down at her, no jon to make laugh because he’s always so serious.  it’s summer, but they’re gone, and she stands alone now, and her wolf is too old to run.

“arya?”                        

she turns.  she’d not heard him follow her, but there he is, his tunic not laced at the collar and dark shadows under his blue eyes.  he’s tired.

“what are you doing?”

arya looks away, looks out over the grass.  her father had ridden here.  she had played with bran here, hunting for wildflowers once.  she’d trained nymeria here–or tried to.  her wolfpup had never taken to training, but she’d tried to make her learn to sit on command the way that dogs did.

she swallows.  "i wanted to walk.  don’t you ever want to walk?“

"not in the middle of the night,” gendry replies.  "but i suppose that’s always when you walked, wasn’t it?“

she snorts, and crouches down on the ground.  the grass is damp with dew, but after a moment of weighing how wet her rump will get, she sits, and begins to tug at the grass as once she’d done in the godswood when her father was praying.

"why’d you follow?” she asks.

“would you rather i hadn’t?”

“no.”

gendry takes that as an invitation and sits down next to her, letting out an annoyed huff from the damp.

arya breathes the sweet air of the north again, chilly but not unpleasantly so in her mouth.  it feels clear.  she closes her eyes.  for the first time since she’d decided to go to bed, since the castle had gone quiet for the night, she feels truly tired.

she leans against gendry, her head against his shoulder, her fingers tracing circles through the grass at her side.

“you don’t have to be here,” she says at last.  "i don’t need a guard.“

"yeah.  i know,” gendry snorts.  "i’m not here to guard you.“                        

_winter woman._

she opens her eyes again and stares into that red sun for a moment, willing it to…she doesn’t know.  the summer sun is stronger than any flame the red woman had lit.  it burns the night away this far north.  it is gendry’s nightfires.

she can feel his heat next to her.  they’re barely touching, but she can.  she’d run around these moors with bran as a girl, playing games of tag, but she’d never felt warmth from anything but her heart then.  not so now.

she pulls her cloak tighter around her, and wraps her arms around her knees.

 _i was never alone in summer,_ she thinks.  she’d had bran to play with, and jon to love, and sansa to curl up next to at night.  she’d had her father to tell about her day, her mother to make sure she was attentive in her lessons, robb to look up to, rickon to take care of. _i’m not alone now either… and yet…_

her days were full.  she cared.  she cared so much sometimes she felt she had given all her heart away to those around her and there wasn’t an ounce of caring left for herself.  when she thought that thought, she reminded herself that she had a face, and a name, and that she was more than just arya horseface, arya underfoot, arya nothing and no one.  she was arya stark, and as a stark of winterfell it was her duty to serve and care for and by all the gods that ever anyone prayed to, she did care.  she laughed and chatted and loved and managed and was not alone, was never alone…

but alone and lonely aren’t the same thing. 

 _i’m not lonely,_ she berates herself.  she has bran, and rickon, and sansa, and everyone around her.  she loved them.  they’d all persevered, they were all here, living as their father would have wanted, protecting the north as he had done.     

she’s not lonely.  not all the time.

she leans against gendry again.

"when i was a girl, i used to play out here all the time,” she tells him.

“i don’t doubt it,” he replies.

“i used to hate how hot i’d get in my wollen dress, but the one time i took it off and ran about in my smallclothes, you wouldn’t believe how septa mordane shrieked at me.”

gendry chuckles.  "she’s the one who told you you had blacksmith’s hands?“  

"aye.”

“is that why you came out here tonight in your undershirt?  reliving your childhood?”

arya lets out a hoot of laughter, but it sounds strangled to her ears.  she sighs.   

“i can’t,” she says at last.  "jon’s gone, and my parents, and robb.  and bran can’t play with me.“                        

it’s been years and it still hurts.

"it shouldn’t hurt this much still, should it?”

it’s a moment of weakness, she knows it.  it comes from the tiredness, from the sweet northern air, and knowing that of anyone in the world gendry will understand.  he always does.

“when i’m tired, it still hurts that my mother gave me away,” gendry says quietly.  "so i suppose it should.  it’s the middle of the night.“

arya looks at him, then reaches out a hand out slowly and touches the dark circle under his eye.  he closes his eyes for a moment, and arya whispers, "would you think me selfish if i’m glad she did?  because it means you’re here now?”

gendry’s eye snaps open and for a moment she thinks he’s angry.  but he’s not. 

“when i’ve slept, i’m glad she did too,” he whispers.  "because then i’m here with you now.“

she’s still touching his face.  she sees his eyes flicker and sees that he’s noticed it too.  it’s the sweetness in the air, and the pink in the sky, and she’s a winter woman in the midst of summer and gendry’s warm on a chilly night.  she’ll never be a little girl again–can’t be–but in this moment, looking into his eyes, she remembers that pain and mourning aren’t the same, just as loneliness and aloneness aren’t.  that summer child had grown.  she is still alive.  she did not need to mourn her as she mourned her father, and mother, and robb, and jon.  just because she was tired and the sun was still in the sky did not mean she could forget that she lived.

 _i am alive_ , she thinks again, and this time, it is a triumph.

she leans forward and rests her forehead against gendry’s, and she intended to leave it there, to just breathe the air with him, but her lips drift closer and closer to his, and he reaches up a hand to run through her hair, and when at last their lips touch, it’s not a jolt of perfection as she’d heard singers say, it’s not even the heat of dragonflames, it’s the steady warm head of the late-night sun that rolls through her.

it’s a long kiss, and gentle, and when arya does at last pull away, she rises to her feet and offers a hand to gendry.  "i think it’s time for sleep,” she says quietly.

his gaze is questioning, and arya smiles as she helps him up, and when they walk back to winterfell, she wraps an arm around his waist.


	92. blazed as fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for insomniarama

it wouldn’t be happening if they weren’t blazed as fuck.  (is it “blazed” if it’s edibles? probably right? blazed isn’t about the “lighting up” it’s about the after the lighting up.  isn’t it?  she’ll have to ask hot pie about it later.  she’ll also have to ask how strong the brownies he made are because _jesus_ she’s blazed as fuck.)

she’s not _mad_  it’s happening, and she’s guessing from the way that gendry’s grinding right up behind her, he’s probably pretty pleased with it too.  

the music is loud and arya sways to it.  there’s a singer singing, but she doesn’t care about the words or the harmonies she cares about the thump thump thump of the drum and the bass and her heart.  she cares about the way the lights in room are sparkling right in her mind and the way that the air tastes like sweat and weed and the way that gendry’s hand is hot against her hip as she rocks her ass against his dick.

somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows it can’t go farther than this.  she knows that they’re both too high to give consent and it’s not like their dating.  but she does like the feel of his dick against her ass.  it makes sense, like the way his hand feels on her hip, like the way her heart is beating in time with the bass, like the way that the world is both fast and slow right now because hot pie baked them brownies and got them blazed as fuck.

she feels gendry’s lips on her neck and it’s like lace is spreading over her skin.  she reaches her hands up behind her and runs her fingers through his hair and it’s so soft.  she presses her back against his chest and his grip changes and he’s hugging her now and she tilts her head and he tilts his and their lips find each other.

the music goes on and on.  vaguely in the distance arya’s aware of a set change, of new musicians on the stage, but she doesn’t care.  nothing could distract her from the perfection of gendry’s lips, not even the question of what happens when tomorrow happens and hot pie’s brownies have left their bloodstream.


	93. It wasn't that it had been bad, but it had been hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for justanothergirllostintheinternet

It wasn’t that it had been _bad,_ but it had been hard.  The time difference was not something she’d expected to matter.  Gendry had always been early to rise and she’d always been late to bed, so they’d figured that with those two habits, they’d manage to get some good video chats going.  And they had–but it wasn’t the same.  It wasn’t the same being far away, not having someone to explore with, or someone to snuggle with, or someone to just pass on campus who was happy to have caught a glimpse of her.

It wasn’t that it had been bad.  She’d liked her study abroad program, and had made good friends, and had gotten good grades, and thought that she’d made the most of it.  But that doesn’t mean her heart isn’t hammering in her chest as the cab drops her off in front of Gendry’s house–because her semester had ended a week before finals period and so she’d have days to get used to being back in the country, and back with him.

She pays the driver and grabs her backpack–mostly empty because she’d planned on wearing Gendry’s clothes and so hadn’t bothered to bring any of her own–and hurries up the walkway.  She pushes open the front door and catches a glimpse of Jeyne Heddle lying on the couch watching some television program.  The girl grins at her.  “He’s upstairs,” she says, winking, and Arya takes the stairs two at a time.  She knocks on his door and he opens it and a moment later she’s in his arms and his hands are on her ass holding her up as she wraps her legs around his waist, and they’re breathing one another in because this is what she wants right now, what she needs.

“Hi,” she whispers into his neck.

“Hi,” he whispers back.  

They don’t move, they just hold one another, glad she’s home, glad she’s there, glad they’re together.  Then Arya’s lips begin to move on Gendry’s neck, and his fingers tighten against her ass, and he walks backwards a few steps before kicking the door to his bedroom shut.

He lowers himself slowly onto the bed and the moment he’s sitting, Arya begins to move, rocking her hips against his groin, and sucking on his neck more intensely than she had before.  Gendry shoves her backpack off her shoulders, then tugs at her shirt and sweatshirt, pulling them over her head.  He’s already hard and Arya can tell this isn’t a moment for soft and sweet lovemaking.  He fumbles with the clasp of her bra, but Arya leaves him to it because she’s got her hands down between them now, pulling him out of his jeans and boxers and knowing it was dumb to have worn pants herself because she’ll have to take them off and that’s too much time away from him.  

But she gets up off his lap, shimmies her jeans and underpants down her legs, toeing her shoes off before kicking the pants aside, then stripping off her bra at last.  Then she leaps at him again, and his arms tighten around her as she positions herself over him and they both sigh as she sinks onto him and the world stands still for just a moment.


	94. Why did you say that?  You’re not my brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for gendryxaryatrash

_Why did you say that?  You’re not my brother._  
 _  
_No, he’s not.

He drinks his wine, but he’s not in peace.  Not even a little bit.  She’s gone, but when she left the whole room seemed to get louder.  The girls are all laughing, and swaying, and bouncing, and Gendry drinks because if he drinks then he doesn’t have to think about why the sight of them makes him feel nervous, somehow.   _They’re just girls._ Just girls, but he feels like a boy and not a man when he looks at them.  He felt safer around Arya, protecting her from that old man, than he does now, and of course he’s gone and driven her off.

_Why did you say that?  You’re not my brother._

_That’s right.  I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high._

Why had he said that?  When she had gone the anger had changed color.  He wasn’t angry with her.  He was angry with…with everything.  He always had been.

She’d never understand, couldn’t really.  The world had been given to her with her name the day she was born.  And Gendry had had nothing, and even when he’d had something, it wasn’t very much.  He’d clung to hopes, and dreams.  Master Mott was a skilled smith, but Gendry was as good an apprentice as he’d ever had.  If Master Mott was good, Gendry could hope, one day, to be better.  Gendry could hope, one day, to have his own smithy, and a pile of gold from commissions, and a name he bought with that gold because you couldn’t be nameless if you had your own smithy, and if you had enough money no one looked twice at you for buying one.  He could have his own house, his own wife, his own son, his own friends–he’d had nothing but hopes and now he didn’t even have those.  He didn’t have anything.  He hadn’t had anything to lose, and yet the war had taken it anyway.

He drinks and remembers Lommy’s throat cut, remembers the stocks at Harrenhal, remembers Arya charging into battle.  He drinks, and remembers his mother, and Master Mott, and everything he’d ever lost.

_And now her._

_Too bloody lowborn to be kin…_ she was going back to her family now.  Her real brother, not him.  They’d been friends, yes, but friends because they’d had to be.  They liked each other well enough, but everyone knows you can’t be friends with a bastard smith if you’re a Stark of Winterfell, no matter what.  He’d lose her too, in the end.

Behind him, Tom is singing, and Lem flirting with that black-haired girl, and how does a singer fall in with outlaws.  Surely the outlaws might need a smith.  If she’s going to leave him anyway…

He drinks.  He hates himself for thinking it, but it doesn’t matter what she says.  She could, he does not doubt, find him a place in her household, but it would be her place still, never truly his.  He wouldn’t have earned it, he won’t own it, he won’t have claimed it.  It’ll have the Stark name written all over it, and could be revoked if ever she cooled to him, surely.  He’s always wanted his own, needed to make his own, and all this was just a road to it.  

The wine is bitter in his mouth as he finishes his cup.  He doesn’t like thinking of her as just a part of his journey.  It feels wrong.  He gets up and climbs the stairs to the room that they’d been given and he finds her in there, curled up and already asleep.  He lies down next to her and watches the way her ribs rise and fall with her breathing.   _I’m going to lose you too,_ he tells her in his mind.   _I’m not your brother.  I can’t be your brother.  I’ve got to be me._


	95. I rebel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the rogue one hell folks on my dashboard

“this is a rebellion.  i rebel.”

the words are stronger than she feels, but she won’t let anyone see it.  she can’t let anyone see it.  there’s too much riding on it, and if all this falls apart, then the men who killed her father, killed her mother, will win and all of this will be for nothing.  

but they don’t seem to heed her.  she hears murmurs, sees rebels shaking their heads and hears, as if from far away, the words “not now.  it’s too risky.  it’s too dangerous.”

that’s when she looks at gendry, standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at her intently.  he doesn’t look frustrated.  he doesn’t look angry.  he doesn’t even look apologetic.  he looks precisely the way he had when they’d made it off jedha, and that shouldn’t be calming to her.  he’d lied, after all.  he’d been sent to kill her father, not to save him.  except he hadn’t done it.  he hadn’t done it because he’d started looking at her just like he was looking at her now, like he would follow her into the dark and back again.

she turns and leaves and she knows that gendry’s going to follow her and sure enough she’s barely out of the meeting room when he falls into pace at her side, looking down at her.

“well?” he breathes.

“well?  we’re going.”

she hears, rather than sees, him exhale.  “this way,” he says quietly, and he leads her back to the landing bay and arya feels calm, knowing that they’re doing something, knowing that he’s coming with her.


	96. “I may be an idiot but I’m your idiot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anidlebrain

“come on,” arya murmurs under her breath.  “come on, come on, come on.”

the woods are on fire.  the smoke is thick and it wrenches at her heart to see the trees all aflame like that.  she’d ridden in those woods with her father and her brothers and they’ll be gone soon.  but fire’s the only way to truly destroy them, and it is war, and if they live they’ll plant trees again, they _will._

she doesn’t dare enter the skin of the wolf, she doesn’t dare for she doesn’t want to smell the burning flesh so hot and fragrant in her throat.  she doesn’t want to know what the cooked meat smells like, even if she wants to know…

“my lady!” someone calls down the line and arya follows a pointed torch.  she sees a figure, trudging through the snow, and in the darkness she can’t make out his face.  but she recognizes the gait all too well, and worse–she recognizes that something’s wrong with it.

“you have the wall,” she tells ned, who nods at her as she descends into the courtyard.

“open them,” she commands the men at the gates, and they unbar them and let them swing open right as gendry stumbles through, hood covering his face, his cloak covered in snow, and smelling of blood and ash. 

“what happened?” she asks him as he stops before her, breathing hard.  

“the flame,” he says, and his voice is dry.

“someone fetch him water,” she barks, knowing it will be done.  she steps closer and reaches for the hood, but gendry recoils.

“it blew back into my face,” he says.

“let’s look at it, then,” she says.  “are you burned? does it hurt?”

gendry lowers the hood and arya inhales sharply.  it’s not like the hound’s burns–bad and only one side.  it’s all over his face, and she can already see pus and scabs covering his skin.

“oh you idiot,” she says gently.  she takes one of his hands and sees that he’s not wearing gloves–or rather that the gloves are charred and covered in holes and the skin beneath them is blistering.  

“i may be an idiot, but i’m your idiot,” gendry says hotly.  “and the woods are burning like you said.”

“i know,” arya says quickly, flushing.  “i’m–i’m glad you’re alive.  let’s get you taken care of.”  gingerly, she takes his arm and leads him towards the burned keep, all the more glad she’d remained ignorant of the smell of burning flesh.


	97. I hate the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for jeynegrey

_“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to make me to hate you?”_

_“No, I couldn’t.  I wouldn’t.”  
_

_“Because that’s what it seems like you’re doing.”  
_

He hates the sound of the rain.  He hates the sound of thunder.  He hates the flash of lightning, and the way the wind rises because when it’s all there together, he can see Arya’s face, crumpled and hurting.

_“Oh yeah?”_

_“Yeah.”  
_

_“Because you know me so bloody well, don’t you?”  
_

_“Stop it.  Stop it! You know that I–”  
_

_A flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, a heart that hardens._

He pulls his jacket tighter around him.  Once he remembers liking rainy days, the way the water makes the streets shine.  He remembers kissing Arya in the rain, and her talking about how you could always smell things better in the rain because the rain made things feel alive.  

The rain doesn’t make him feel alive right now.

_“I don’t need this from you.  From you of all people.”_

_“Need what?  Gendry–I’m not doing_ anything _you’re the one who’s driving me away.”_

_“Fuck off, you know I wouldn’t do that.”  
_

_“Then what are you doing now?”  
_

Doing that.  Doing exactly that.

_“Where are you going?”_

_“I’ve got to get out of here.”_

_“Gendry!”  He’d gone out into the rain._

The bus is at the intersection and Gendry digs into his pocket for his wallet and his card pass.  He’s soaking and he doesn’t care.  He doesn’t care about much at all.   _Is that what you’re doing?  Trying to make me hate you?_

 _No more than I hate myself, Arya._   It all seemed so pointless now.  Happiness was fleeting and misery was persistent, and the fucking red light won’t change and he’ll never be dry and never be able to make it through a fucking rainy day without thinking of her.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he digs it out, sure it’s going to be Thoros telling him what chapel they’re meeting at later.  But it’s not Thoros.  On his lock screen he sees a number that was burned into his brain even though he deleted her contact information.

_I hate the rain and I miss you._

The bus comes. Gendry boards, and moves towards the back, moves slowly, wiping wet from his face.


	98. Agelast & Basorexia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for brglarbaggins

“i don’t see what you like in him–he is so surly all the time.”

except he isn’t, not truly.  

she knows why it is that people say that.  she is all too familiar with the way he glowers at pretty much everyone.  but that’s not what she sees, or perhaps not what she lets him be.

gendry never laughs, but he laughs for her.  his body relaxes and his head cocks and his eyes shine and it’s all too silly because she’s known him forever, known him since she was a little girl, but she can’t help look at the curve of his lips, peeking pink through the dark hair of his beard.  

she’s not a little girl anymore, and she’s never kissed anyone before, so it takes her a while to realize that that’s why she’s fascinated by his lips.  she wants to know what they taste like, wants to feel his laughter vibrating through her body, wants to make him smile, make his heart race, make his eyes go wide with wonder.  it’s a frightening thought, for what if she ruins everything.

but it’s gendry, and she couldn’t ruin anything with gendry, and she must be brave, like her father, like jon and robb, because even if it’s only a kiss, sometimes a kiss is everything.


	99. Dystopia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for gazyrlezon

she pretends that she is dead.  it’s the easiest way.  pretend that you are dead and they might not notice you.  might.  

it’s cold.  and dark.  winter is coming was supposed to be a rallying cry, the warning of her house.  it wasn’t supposed to be _this_.  everyone dead and what left?  what was left her?  no house no home no winterfell not even needle, melted in the icy hot flame of a dead dragon.  who is she?  is she truly no one now, more no one than ever she’d dreamed possible, for even the memories of jon’s smiles make her cold and she can’t bear any more cold so she does not think of them.

she doesn’t know where to fight or how.  she feels feral, moreso than every they’d called her when she was a girl.  feral means you’ve gone wild, doesn’t it? that you’ve forgotten what society is like?  there is no society anymore.  just death.  just death and the reanimated dead and arya pretending she’s dead and for what purpose? to hope that she’ll find someone alive?

* * *

she does.

first it’s a little boy–a clever little boy who’s doing what she’s doing and pretending to be dead.  his eyes are big in his hungry face and he’s only nine or ten.   _like i was at harrenhal._ she is sixteen now, the way gendry was.

she tries not to think of gendry, either.  that hurts too much too.

he says his name is robb.  robb for her brother who’d only been a boy when this robb had been born.  they pretend to be dead together and she tries not to think of robb’s body with its wolf’s head–somehow more monstrous still after all these years than the shambling corpses all around.

* * *

they avoid as much as they can.  stay out of the open, stay out of the crowds, do what you can, scavange for food, hope it’s not rotton, hope it won’t kill you.  little robb is frightened.  she understands why gendry had taken to her.  she’d not shown her fear the way robb does.  that must have been comforting for him if he was frightened too.  

he had to have been frightened too.

* * *

she smells smoke.  

something is on fire.

it’s too cold and dark for fire, surely.  

more importantly it’s too dead for fire.

she puts a finger to her lips and robb nods.  then she sneaks towards it, wishing nymeria were alive.  nymeria always had a better nose than she did.  

there are three people sitting around a fire.  it’s a smile fire, and she hears voices.   _praying?_

 _there is no lord of light.  there are no old gods.  there’s nothing to pray to,_ she wants to tell them.  but instead she takes robb’s hand and they push through the snow together.  at the edge of the light the praying stops.  

they sit down together, and one of the bundled people offers her the cooked leg of a hare.

nothing has ever tasted quite so sweet.

* * *

 _are they pack now?_ arya wonders.  one small pack of living people in a world of the dead and damned.  are they damned too? damned to live in a world of the dead, some frozen hell?

arya takes the first shift awake, then prods the next one awake.  he’s the biggest of the three, the tallest and the broadest of shoulder, and he wakes without a word and she curls into the fur he vacates.  it smells familiar.  it smells…it smells…

she sits up her eyes wide.

“ _gendry?”_

her words are only a whisper in the wind, but he whips around and pulls the scarves from his face and it’s so cold that the tears freeze on arya’s face because she’d thought he was dead she’d thought everyone she’d ever loved was dead but here he is alive, _alive_  and she pelts herself at him and feels his arms snap around her.

“i thought you’d died,” he whispers to her.

“and i you,” she mumbles into his chest.

“where do we go from here?” he asks her when she looks up at him.

she doesn’t know.  she doesn’t know if there’s anywhere _to_  go, not even across the sea.  but she keeps that thought away.  fighting her way out of hell might be worth it if gendry’s there fighting with her.


	100. your name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rarely tell you not to read an AU of mine if you haven’t already seen the original…but for real if you haven’t seen/intend to ever see [Your Name./Kimi no na wa](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5311514/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt), you should do that before reading this.

“Excuse me.  Have I… met you? Somewhere?”

_Magic hour._

_He writes on her palm. It’s the pen he used to trace over roads on maps, trying to remember trying to see it clearly it had been a dream it had been a_

_He had reinstalled the app and submitted a ticket to their support team. Some bug had deleted all his journal entries and he’d had to start from scratch. We are so sorry, they had written, please accept this discount on a premium account. But that won’t recover what I wrote. What she wrote.  She? Who is she?  What’s her_

_Jeyne had been in town again.  The sight of her had stirred the memories.  “Remember the time we went to Itomori?” “Yeah. A comet hit there when I was in high school. I was kind of obsessed with it. Somehow everyone had_

_Run.  You’ve got to run. Please Arya, please you have to. You can still save everyone. Can still save yourself. Can save_

_Sometimes he feels like he is trying to find something.  Or someone. Things were easier when he was a kid.  School work wash rinse repeat. Now he has to find a job and Lommy already has two offers and Hot Pie has eight but Gendry can’t convince anyone to hire him.  “You’ve got to act like you want it,” Hot Pie teases over coffee. “They can smell fear.” Part of Gendry thinks this wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t lost his lucky charm, if he hadn’t lost his_

_“You drank my sake?  You–you pervert!  And you grabbed my boobs Bran said so!”  They’d been hers.  Or his? He was in her did that make him hers and her his? She set him up on dates and spent all his wages on strawberry shortcake and had the nerve to take pictures of it and leave them on his camera roll.  Hadn’t she? Or had that been him had it been_

__His heart stops when he sees it.  He doesn’t know why–she is just some girl with her hair tied back with a red ribbon and when she turns to look at him there’s some odd disappointment as if she’s the wrong one, as if there’s a right one out there somewhere as if_  
_

She stops on the stairs and turns slowly.  There are tears in her eyes, but she is smiling.

_I went to see you.  In Tokyo. I went but you didn’t recognize me.  It was too soon. I didn’t know.  The time…your grandmother says that time and union…it flows…or something._

_It was a woven cord from Itomori. He had lost it a few years ago.  The same time he went out there.  With Jeyne and Lommy.  Had they fought? He remembers crying.  He remembers his voice hurting, being raw from shouting_

_Gendry? Gendry?  He hears himself hears her shouting or is it the wind?  Everything is loud up here. Everything is quiet up here._

_He is going mad.  He has grown a pair of boobs._

_It had felt wrong–going on that date with Jeyne.  He’d wanted it for so long, but it feels wrong, like he’s cheating, because it should be_

_He cries all the way back to Tokyo.  He can’t remember why.  He can’t remember her name.  The line on his palm is already fading from sweat.  Fading, like memory, like_

“I thought so, too,” she says.  She sounds so happy but she is crying.

_She came to Tokyo before he knew her.  She came to see him, and found him on a subway during rush hour.  He hadn’t known her but there was something about her so he had asked her her name and she’d given him the cord she used to hold her hair back_

__His head hurts from where he hit it and he can still taste the–her–sake in his mouth.  Is she there?  Can she hear him?  She can’t be gone.  She can’t be.  Arya!  Arya!_  
_

__Everything is so bright.  It’s beautiful even though everyone’s going to die even though she’s going to die.  She can’t die.  He won’t let her.  He’s running as fast as he can, but her legs are shorter than his legs and as they run up the mountain the air grows thinner and thinner and she’s coughing now_ _

__Sometimes he wakes up in the morning and he half expects it to be quiet.  Not early morning Tokyo quiet, real quiet, by the lake quiet.  But it’s not it never is it never was why does he feel like it should be._ _

_He zones out on trains.  Usually he stares at his phone, unless he’s by a window.  He likes looking out the window, seeing the people passing by looking for a glimpse of red_

_“We should write each other’s names on our palms so that when we wake up we’ll remember.”  But the pen had dropped as she’d begun writing the first stroke and Gendry stares at his palm blankly as the pen rattles on the ground at his feet.  It’s dark.  Magic hour is over._

_It’s almost as if Itomori had known that the comet was going to split.  They’d been doing a mock safety drill at the high school, out of range of the explosion.  Almost no one was killed.  Conspiracy theories had started, though, and the mayor had lost his next election, as if he had something to do with structural damage to a comet nearly destroying his town.  People were crazy_

_He realizes he’s not going crazy–not because he remembers–but because she leaves a note in the diary app on his phone.  I’m Arya, and I covered your shift and I charmed Miss Jeyne on your behalf using my feminine expertise and_

_He’s staring out the window, just staring like he always does on his way to wherever he’s going when the train he’s on catches up to another one and suddenly he sees her and it’s like seeing the world explode and the full moon overhead during magic hour because that’s her that’s her how does he know her what’s her name and the way her eyes are going wide in her lovely long face too she looks like she knows him too and he gets off at the next stop he doesn’t know where he’s going he doesn’t know he_

_just knows that everyone in Itomori is going to die.  Did die.  They died.  Arya died she died and he’s trembling because he wants to die too, she can’t be dead she can’t just be gone not when he’d started not when he’d_

_found her, standing at the top of the stairs.  Her hair is windswept, her face flushed as though she’d been running.  Gendry straightens and she does too.  Quietly, they pass each other on the steps, and Gendry’s heart is pounding like climbing the stairs was the same as climbing the mountain by Itomori and he should just say something say something say anything say_

_He can save them.  She can save them.  She can save them all.  He can save her help her save them all because he knows he_ knows _that the comet is coming and people will think she’s mad will think she’s magic what does it matter so long as she’s alive because he has this chance this one magic hour magic chance to save it all and then maybe he won’t feel so alone maybe she’ll come back she has to come back she has to she_

_She’s gone, she’s gone he has to remember her name, he shouts Arya Arya Arya at the moon, how can he forget her name is Arya her name is is what’s her_

“Please,” he asks, and his voice is breathless, he’s so excited he can hardly contain himself, “Can I ask you your name?”


	101. Reunited

when he sees her again, she’s riding on the back of a wolf.  not a small wolf, either–a wolf the size of a horse–a direwolf.  he remembers a girl who always seemed to climb everything, castle walls, trees, so why not a direwolf?  

he should say, “you’re alive,” should tell her that he’s missed her, that he’s spent years wondering where she’d run off to that night, but instead, he hears himself saying, “where’ve you been, then?”

she rolls her eyes at him, a hardened smirk playing at her lips.  “it’s not where i’ve been–it’s where i’m going.”

“oh? and where’s that?” he knows the answer, knows it before the word even falls from her lips.

“winterfell,” she says, and rests her hand on top of the wolf’s head.  “i’m taking my pack home.”

there’s something strange in her eyes–something wary.  he’s never seen her look at him this way, not ever.  he doesn’t like it.  she always used to trust him implicitly.  he doesn’t like it that she might not, still.

once she’d promised him that her kingly brother would find him a place to serve in his household.  she’d been covered in dirt, then.  she looks more a princess now than ever she had when she’d been a girl on that back of that direwolf.  but there’s the same intensity to her face that he’s always known, and it’s that, more than anything else, that makes him open his mouth to speak again.

“do you only have your wolves?  no army to take back winterfell?”

“my wolves are more than enough,” she says, looking back over her shoulder.  there are hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and gendry doesn’t want to think about what would happen if the hell bitch arya is riding decided that he looks edible.

“so you have no need of a knight errant, then?”

her eyes are bright now, shining and grey, like little moons in her face.  “i have need of any who’d join me,” she says before pausing.  “if…if you’d come with me.”

gendry takes a step towards her, and she vaults off the back of her wolf and is running at him and a moment later she’s in his arms, and he’s in hers.


	102. birthday fic for roxy

> the “this is your house I’m not making you sleep on the couch” “yeah but you’re the guest you take the bed” conversation between ur otp right before they share the bed reblog if u agree [#NO I INSIST IT WOULDN’T BE RIGHT](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/NO-I-INSIST-IT-WOULDN%27T-BE-RIGHT)[#WELL THIS BED LOOKS BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/WELL-THIS-BED-LOOKS-BIG-ENOUGH-FOR-BOTH-OF-US)[#SO THAT WE BOTH CAN BE COMFORTABLE](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/SO-THAT-WE-BOTH-CAN-BE-COMFORTABLE)[#AND WILL IN NO WAY MIGRATE TOWARDS EACH OTHER](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-WILL-IN-NO-WAY-MIGRATE-TOWARDS-EACH-OTHER)[#AND ATTEMPT TO BECOME ONE ENTITY WHILE WE SLEEP](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-ATTEMPT-TO-BECOME-ONE-ENTITY-WHILE-WE-SLEEP)

“This is your house.  I’m not making you sleep on the couch.”

He really should have seen that one coming.  How could he not have?  It’s not like he hadn’t known her since she was ten fucking years old.  Pain in his ass even back then.

“Yeah, but you’re the guest.  You take the bed.  That’s how it goes.”

Arya glares at him.  It’s funny–the curve of her jaw is exactly the same as it had been when he’d been her freaking camp counselor and she’s refusing point blank to do things that are scheduled for her, even if she’s  _ten,_ until you’d convinced her that it’s the right way to proceed.

Gendry does not envy his past self having had to handle that task on a regular basis.  Not, of course, that that matters: he’s there now all over again.

“Will you even fit on the couch?” Arya asks, glancing at him and then at the couch.  

“Yes,” Gendry lies.  “I fall asleep on it all the time while watching TV.”

“Look, a nap on a Sunday is one thing.  Sleeping all night on a thing that’s not designed for your body is a whole different thing.”  She’s got her arms crossed over her chest and everything, and Gendry narrows his eyes.  

“How do you know I don’t sleep with my knees raised?”  Lommy had done that once on the beach.  Gendry remembers it clearly because Hot Pie and Arya had covered him in sand and had made jokes about how his legs were now mountains poking out of the sand.  

“Unless you’ve changed since the last time we had this argument…”

The last time they’d had this argument had been when Arya had still been in college.  He’d been roadtripping north with some friends and had stopped by Winterfell.  It had been forever since he’d seen that scrap of a kid who’d oddly been one of his closest friends at camp, but she’d seen him use the check-in feature on on his faces app and had sent him about twelve messages and insisted that he’d come and drink with her.  He attributed the fact that he’d ended up sleeping in the bed in her dorm room with Arya on the couch to his being drunk and the fact that she had an extra-long college-issued mattress.  No one ever had extra-long mattresses, and Gendry sometimes felt like he’d never stopped growing.

Gendry glares at her now.  She’s winning and she knows it, he can tell from the way that curve in her jaw is turning into a slight smirk.  

“Look, this is all stupid,” he says, changing tactics.  “The bed’s big enough for both of us.  We can both sleep in it.”

“I won’t catch cooties?” Arya snorts, and Gendry rolls his eyes.  

The bed is, in fact, more than big enough for both of them.  Arya’s smaller than Gendry (everyone’s smaller than Gendry) and it’s not as though he’s not had girls over before who’ve ended up staying the night.  This is, of course, different than that, because he’s known Arya forever and is not interested in fucking her, but that should make it even safer, right? And besides, what the fuck kind of puritanical nonsense was it that you could only share a bed with someone you were having sex with, but not with one of your oldest friends?  That was bullshit.

Once the bed situation is decided upon, they both seem to relax.  Arya’s looking at law schools in the capital before deciding where she wants to end up.  (“I probably won’t go to King’s Landing.  They’re all vying to be president or on the supreme court or something, and it’s super competitive, and I don’t know…that’s not me.  But at the same time they’re–belatedly, I might add–adding this new immigration rights workshop that just seems so cool so I can’t exactly write it off.”) Her sister is getting married in the spring; she has a new nephew (Arya shows off videos of him playing with a baby piano on her phone while he makes baby noises); she doesn’t much like her brother’s new girlfriend but she is trying to be generous and assume it’s something she’ll get over.  She chats away while helping Gendry clean the dishes from dinner (his dishwasher’s broken and he keeps forgetting to call someone to fix it).

It’s fun having her around.  Easy.  Oddly homey.  She understands him better than most of his friends these days do.  His mother used to talk about the difference between good friends and old friends, and Arya is, has been, both.

It’s not fun having her around at all when they’re getting ready for bed.  He’s used to seeing her in jeans and an ill-fitting t-shirt and is thoroughly unprepared for the tank-top with spaghetti straps and the boxers that she wears as they brush their teeth.  He’s thoroughly unprepared for the way he notices how tight that tank top fits around her waist, the way the wrinkles sit on what is undeniably a curve between her hips and ribcage–a curve that hadn’t been there at all when he’d been younger.  It’s not fun at all noticing the way his eyes slip down to her ass as though she’s anyone but Arya, the way his eyes take in details like how he’s  _sure_  he can determine the size of her nipples not because the tank top is see-through but because the way that it seems to sit over her skin  _changes_  at the front of her breasts.

Suddenly, he wishes he’d held his ground better about sleeping on the couch.  When she slides into the bed next to him, and curls up into a ball and buries her face into one of his pillows, he’s all too aware of her breathing, of the way she smells, of the fact that they’re so close–so very close.

 _It’s not puritanical.  It’s fucking smart,_ Gendry curses his hubris.  He usually sleeps on his right side, but that would be facing Arya.  Arya is sleeping on her left side, so Gendry tries it, but within about thirty seconds his arm is shooting pins and needles and he twists back to lie on his back, determined not to look at her as he does so.  But then, he remembers that he’s not a back sleeper, because his lower back starts to ache and, much to his own amused frustration, he bends his knees, resting his feet flat on the mattress to ease his back a bit.  

“You don’t have to prove your point, you know,” Arya says.  She sounds amused.  

“Nah, my lower back is doing a thing,” Gendry lies, trying not to sound defensive.  “Getting old sucks.”

“Well, that was stupid of you, getting old,” she teases sleepily.  “You should have stayed young forever.”

 _So should you,_ he thinks desperately.  He tries to remember how she’d looked–uneven short haircut because she’d taken scissors to her ponytail, much to the dismay of her bunk counselor, wearing a bright yellow life jacket that was only just too big for her.  But he can’t.  He can only see Arya’s hips on those boxer shorts, and the way her breasts looked in that tank top.

“More fool me,” he manages at last.  Arya chuckles and shifts in her sleep.  She’s always been a cuddler.  He remembers that from…from when?  He’d never cuddled with her when she’d been a kid.  He’d had to help Jeyne think of how she was going to stay in her bed during naptime since she never wanted to.  Had it been something from the last time he’d seen her?  Or…

He feels her nose against his arm and he doesn’t pull away.  It’s startling, but he’s never been one to jolt back like a frightened animal.  He’s always prided himself on his steadiness.  “You and me both, I suppose,” she sighs.  Her breath is warm against his skin.

This is unbearable.

He’s the worst friend on the planet.  

“I suppose you always did have a way of following me into trouble, didn’t you?”

“Look–just because you were too stupid to hide properly during color wars does not mean I followed you.  I  _rescued_  you.  You’d have still been behind the mountain even today if it weren’t for me.”

“That’s not true,” Gendry snorts.

“It is,” Arya says huffily.  She’s sitting up on her elbows now, he can see the outline of her face in the dark, and her eyes are shining fiercely somehow.  “It is and you know it.”

“We still lost, though,” Gendry said.  It had been a sore loss that one, outfoxed at the last minute.  

“Because you didn’t stick to the plan,” she says and her face is too close to his he can smell her toothpaste in the air, can taste it…

She doesn’t pull away from him, though she does let out a surprised sound in the back of his throat.  Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder very tentatively and when they pause for air she doesn’t look away, doesn’t pull away.

“Why did you do that?” she asks quietly.  Her voice sounds small, as though she’s nervous and he’s such a fool such a fucking fool he should have just slept on the damn couch.

“I couldn’t not,” he hears himself whisper.  

Arya swallows, then pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.  From any other girl, he’d have assumed she was trying to seduce him, but Arya always chewed her lip when she was nervous and he had made her nervous.

“Look,” he says and he sits up.  “I’ll go sleep on the couch, all right.  I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No,” Arya says quickly and she is grabbing his arm.  “No.  No, I want you to…I want you to stay.”

So he does.  He does because he can’t not, because he’s never been able to deny her anything, and when she presses her lips to his again, he holds her close and lets all thoughts of everything else slip away.


	103. twisted cop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for buttercuparry

“Smith, don’t get too close,” Lem warns him through the earpiece.

“I’m not going to get too close,” Gendry says, holding a styrofoam cup of coffee to his lips to hide their movement.  “I can’t get a good view of her is all.”

“She’s twistier than a cat.  You get too close and she spots you we’ll have to find a different eye for her and we’re under-staffed right now.”

“I know.  I know.  Ever since Beric–”

“Smith.”

“I’m just trying to get a better view.”

They’ve been tailing her for weeks–ever since they’d found the remnants of a fake id in Frey’s burned down place.  She clearly hadn’t meant for it to survive, but somehow it had.  Facial recognition software at the precinct hadn’t brought up who she was but Gendry…well, he’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

“Smith,” Lem barked into the earpiece, but he’s close enough now to see her.  She’s typing into a computer, staring intently at the screen.  She hasn’t noticed him yet, Lem can quit worrying.  Except he won’t.  “ _Smith.”_

Gendry pretends to stumble, knocking his coffee over her table and ripping the chord out of his earpiece so that it won’t work anymore.  “Shit!  Sorry!”

Lightning quick, she grabs the computer away from the coffee that could kill it and her eyes flash up to Gendry and just as he’d known it was her immediately–

“Gendry?” she says slowly.  Her voice is lower now, older than a ten-year-old’s, and he remembers what it’s like when they’d found Harwin, he remembers hearing it thick with emotion like that. 

“Arya?” he breathes.  Breathes because she’s alive.  She’s really, and truly alive.

* * *

Gendry’d never thought anything would distract him from his career.  He never thought that he’d ever compromise what he knows to be right, what his marching orders are from the chief, that he’d be the best he could be in a job that–ideally–is about helping people.

But he’d never accounted for Arya.  Maybe Lem’s right.  He shouldn’t have gotten close, he should have stayed back and watched her from afar.  But he’d spent how many years looking for her, hoping that the Hound hadn’t brutalized her the way the Hound had brutalized everyone, only to find that it was  _she_  who had somehow flattened The Twins.  

He shouldn’t have been surprised.  He shouldn’t have been relieved.

He shouldn’t have gotten close to her because the moment he did it was like he was sixteen again and the only person who mattered was the ten-year-old who had more spine to her than anyone he’d ever met.  The only thing that mattered was that Arya was alive, and what did it matter if she was working on bringing down the Lannisters–the justice system wasn’t doing it.  They practically owned the justice system.

And maybe it was that he’d liked comic books too much as a kid and Arya was a little too much like Batman.  He was fine being James Gordon.  A little too fine with it.

He can tell she doesn’t trust him–not the way she used to.  Maybe it’s because wherever she’s been, whatever she’s been doing has made it so she can’t trust anyone wholly anymore.  Or maybe a shrewd kid had gotten to be a shrewder adult.  Or maybe she knows he’s a cop somehow.  Some sixth sense.  She’s always had one.

He’s not going to rat her out, though.  He can’t.  There’s some part of him that knows that it’ll mean his badge, his life, but losing Arya again is more than he can bear and he hadn’t realized that would be true until she’d been there on her computer, researching Lannisters.

He knows she’s researching Lannisters.  He’s not stupid.  

She still calls him stupid though.  

It makes his heart sing.

* * *

“Are you in it with me?  For true?  And don’t you dare lie.  I’ll know if you do.”

It’s raining and windy and they don’t have an umbrella.  If he were wearing a wire it would be impossible for them to hear her.   _She knows_.  

He’s not wearing a wire, though.  Lem took him off the case ages ago–after the coffee incident–because he wasn’t following orders.  He benched him and Gendry doesn’t care because being benched means that he can help her and feel less like a good cop gone bad.  Or a bad cop gone good, maybe.  It doesn’t matter.  He doesn’t feel like a cop at all.  He feels like he’s standing with her in the wind and the rain and like they’re kids again.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I’m in it for true.”

There’s a fire in her eyes, and the smile on her face isn’t a happy one–it’s a purposeful one and it would be scary if he didn’t know her.

The Lannisters don’t know her.  They don’t know what’s coming for them.  But Gendry does.  And Gendry’s coming with it.


	104. arya x gendry week: persuasion

_I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach._

Could she truly believe this?  That a man’s love could not endure, that his own had not endured time and war and sea and humiliation, despite his attempts to banish it from his breast?  It was his own anger that moved him to write, though it was she far more than he for whom such passion could produce action.  A man can only bear so much before something in him breaks and he could bear all the rest but not the thought that he did not love her still.  Could she truly think that men could not love, when he still loved her so ardently?  Not unless she did not know.  But how could she not know?

_You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope._

She did.  She did, for she was ever as she had been and he had loved her then too.  The love had only grown, for to see her, eight years the older and still as determined to help those in need, to care about those who went uncared for… He loved it in her.  He loved her, god help him.  He’d gone to sea to put the thought of her from his mind, and he’d thought he had, but it had only lain dormant it seemed, a flame ready to be lit again by the light of her eyes reflecting the rising sun over the sea.

_Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever._

He hadn’t wanted to hope.  Hadn’t allowed himself to.  And yet sometimes he saw her chewing her lip as she had done all those years before.  And he knew it was habit, had known it well simply because she had told him once that her mother had told her that she mustn’t do it for it was unbecoming of a gentlewoman of her status, but it seemed much more her biting her lip to comfort herself and less because she was thinking.  He’d learned the difference when first he’d fallen in love with her, and she had not changed.  Could she not have changed?  What if she had not changed and all this was for nothing and his hopes were to be dashed again?  He kept writing.  He had to keep writing.

_I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago._

“I can’t,” she’d whispered all those years before.  “I can’t, not while my father… you must understand that I do love you.  I do.”  If it had only been Sansa’s disapprobation, how differently it would have been.  If it had only been the elder sister and not also the father whom Arya so adored, who had told her that she would find herself a better match, that it was not that he did not like Smith, or felt any malice towards him or his status whatsoever, but that he was not fit for a daughter of Winterfell, could never be fit for a daughter of Winterfell.  How he’d hated them all, in the months that followed.  Eddard Stark, who had been kind to him always and who claimed to love his daughter, but still found Gendry too low for her, and Sansa…Sansa whom he was sure had only fanned the flame once Stark had heard of the matter, for all she said she wanted what was best for her sister, it was the connection she had cared about more.

_Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you._

How he had tried to forget her face, the sound of her laughter, the way she’d called him stupid in a most unladylike fashion.  How he had tried to forget her, for the pain in forgetting was better than the agony of remembering.  And yet his traitor heart had denied the command of his head, and the first sight of her had taken the air from his lungs because how could he forget Arya?  Love for her would burn him alive until he died of that much he was certain.  Even if she didn’t want him, even if he only lived to be crushed once again by the cruelties of fate that had slain his mother and left his father unknown to him.

_Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me here. For you alone, I think and plan._

She’d been so delighted to see him in recent months.  She’d not call it such.  She would protect her heart, as he endeavored to protect his.  But the trouble with love is that it meant he thought recognized her heart where her head and face sought to protect it.

_Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine._

It was so unlike her—to deny the evidence before her when he thought it had been so plain, unless she was hoping to spare him the pain of humiliation once again and for the same reason.  That would be like her, but she was not one to play a game with it.  She had ever been forthright.  It was that which he had so admired in her, still admired in her.  She would have told him if it still couldn’t be, even if it harmed him.  So she must have misunderstood, she surely must have.  Which meant that the only thing to do was to tell her.  

_I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me._

He must tell her.  Even if his hand shook, even if he dreaded that he should use the wrong words lest it flare in her mind the same fears as before, that he was too lowly to be hers and hers alone, and that it mattered not how he’d risen in the ranks.

_You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others._

She must love him.  She must still.  The signs were too clear, no matter what his fearful head told him.  He must be brave.  How was it that Arya could undo him and make him small and scared where war and wild sea had been unable to do so?  The loss of her—permanent this time, enduring—would surely destroy him.

_Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in  G. S._

There.  He’d said it.  He’d written the words, he’d made it clear.  He loved her, had always love her, would always love her, and if that was not enough for her, or not right…how to end?  He could not make a demand of her, demand that she love him.  He dared not.  Such would surely send her angrily from him, for no one demanded anything of her.  She would not tolerate it.  But an entreaty, perhaps.  Clarity on his thoughts, and intentions in unequivocal terms…

_I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never._

Her hands trembled as she read.  “Arya?” Beth asked, not unkindly.  “You look pale.  Are you well?”

“I,” she began, but didn’t know what to say.  The only thought in her mind now was that Gendry had just left, that he’d just gone and she wanted to see him, needed to see him, needed him to know for if he had lived in agony so too had she.  But Beth—sweet Beth, kind Beth…she wouldn’t understand just now.  And Arya couldn’t show her heart to anyone just now—to anyone but Gendry.  “I need air,” she said.  She tucked the letter into her sleeve, hoping that Beth would not have seen it, and she found her hat and coat and donned them quickly, hurrying from the room, and down the stairs.

She did not know where he had gone.  She looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of him rounding a corner, striking an impressive figure with his height and his captain’s hat, but she saw no sign of him.  She closed her eyes and breathed for just a moment, and turned left, not knowing why but knowing that she had to go in some direction or else she wouldn’t be able to find him at all.

She hurried as quickly as she could, looking down streets that intersected with hers, but there was no sign of him.  She turned at last when she reached a small garden wading her way into the brown that was starting, slowly, to turn green with the springtime.  It was there, somehow, at last, that she saw him, sitting on a bench, staring at a fountain whose water did not flow.

“Captain,” she said quietly, and his head turned to look at her and she saw it there.  I am half agony, half hope.  

Let the agony wash away, she thought as she approached him feeling as though she were riding the wind.  

“I’d not dared to hope,” she whispered.  “I could not do it, could not place that upon your shoulders, but I never stopped loving you.  My loving you was never in question, young and foolish as I was.”

And when he smiled she’d never seen a man more beautiful.  When he reached for her hand to bring it to his lips, she’d never felt more joy than she felt now.


	105. arya x gendry week: it's not about me

“i don’t need you back right away.  take the morning, get everything you need to in order, and be back here by–let’s say one o’clock.”

her voice is so calm that it makes arya’s hair stand on end.  she feels gendry squeeze her hand and feels the wolf in her belly kick again.   _she’s ready_ , she thinks as panic rises in her.   _or rather, she needs to be ready._

the sun is bright when they step outside.  it’s burned away the mid-may mist and arya pauses and shrugs out of her coat which gendry takes from her immediately.  he’s already got her backpack slung over his shoulder–she’d been planning on taking a cab down to work when the appointment was done, no dealing with the fucking brown line she’s too tired and uncomfortable for that–but it doesn’t matter.  none of it matters.

they walk north, and east, towards the lake, towards home.

home, which is ready for a baby if only by the skin of their teeth.  jon had shown up with ygritte and their little monster in tow only three days before and he and gendry had built the crib they’d ordered from ikea because they really should have one ready already.  ygritte had sat on the couch with arya while lyanna had pelted around the apartment, wrestling with nymeria and just generally being loud while ygritte tried to convince her that parenthood was more than just children being loud all the time.  “ _i don’t mind that,”_ arya had told her, and it wasn’t a lie.  she was used to loud children.  she’d  _been_  a loud child, she knows what would have worked on her if her mother had known what to do with her.  but there was a difference between lyanna wrestling with her dog and her stomach kicking again and having the rest of the morning to prepare for her life to never be the same.

“can you pass me my phone?” she asks gendry.

“hm?” he was lost in thought too, it seems.

“my phone.  i need to email my boss.”

gendry digs it out of the side-pouch of her backpack and she opens her email.  already, there are eighty one emails for her to read, but she doesn’t bother with that.  she opens the first email to her boss, and only types in the subject line before hitting send:  _I’M GETTING INDUCED TODAY.  SEE YOU IN A FEW MONTHS._  then forwards the email on to the rest of her team with an added line of,  _hahaha mycah called it._

she hands the phone back to gendry, who likewise has his own phone out and is probably doing the same thing.  

he’s writing a longer email than she had.  he clearly hadn’t made a plan for what happened if the baby came early with everyone on his team in quite as much detail as she had.  she’d been working on it for the past month, having handoffs prepared and making sure everyone knew she would  _not_  be available even a little bit during her maternity leave.

she opens the group chat window for her siblings.  the last text had come from bran the night before with pictures from his skydiving trip earlier that day.  _i flew!!!!!!!!!!!_ he had said excitedly.  

she hadn’t seen the pictures.  bran looked elated–his blue eyes shining as the instructors helped him get settled back in his chair after he’d landed.

 _i’m glad i didn’t know this was happening.  i’m happy for you but i’d have been worried sick,_ she types.

immediately she sees bran begin to type as well.

_that’s precisely why i didn’t tell you :D_

_i hate changing the subject but i’ve got to,_ she began, watching as bran kept typing.  when she hit send he stopped.  she took a deep breath.   _i’m getting induced today._

_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

bran’s was the first reply, and almost immediately, jon began typing too–then sansa, then robb and rickon.  

_we love you_

_it’ll be crazy but you’ll be all right_

_tell gendry to call if you need anything._

_i will.  i’m closing out now._

“you’re on stark sibling duty,” she tells him. they’ve reached an intersection, and gendry’s phone is back in his pocket.  he’s watching at her.

“of course i am,” he says and he takes her proffered phone and puts it in her bag again.

she reaches for his hand and he squeezes it.  “want ice cream?  it’s hot out.”

she feels her eyes widen, and then she smiles.  they’ve got four hours to kill before this happens.

yes.  yes, she wants ice cream.


	106. arya x gendry week: wedding

_She’s going to fall out of that fucking chair,_  is Gendry’s first thought when the crowd hoists Ygritte into the air, and then Jon.  He’s standing a little ways back from the circling dancing crowd.  He’s not Jewish.  He’s never been to a Jewish wedding.  He’s the only black person—and, as far as he can tell the only gentile—in the room, and he hadn’t actually thought that they actually did the thing with the chairs at a Jewish wedding.  He thought that it was one of those things that people talked about but hadn’t actually thought that it might be true.

Somewhere in the throng of people, he can see Arya.  She’s wearing a wolf hat and is singing and clapping and dancing with the crowd of Jon’s college friends, and when he catches a glimpse of her through the throng of people, her face is bright, her cheeks are flushed, and her hair has definitely come loose from the fancy updo that Sansa had insisted she wear it in for the wedding.

“You gonna go dance?” Bran asks him and Gendry starts.  Bran always manages to startle him—the combination of being lower than eye-level in his wheelchair and that wheelchair being quieter than footsteps means that Gendry’s never expecting Bran.  Bran thinks this is hilarious and sneaks up on him more frequently now than he had before.

“Maybe.  Do I just…” he asks, before falling silent.  Bran can’t dance.  He doesn’t know if Bran’s ever gotten to dance at a wedding before, he’s been in that chair for so long.

“Yeah,” Bran smiles warmly.  “You just go on in.  One of us has got to.”

Gendry nods and takes a deep breath.  He doesn’t know how to break through the throng of people.  They all seem to be holding hands and dancing in circles around Jon and Ygritte, who are both laughing as they are bounced through the air on their chairs.  He catches sight of Robb towards the edge of the circle with his two kids, and begins to make his way towards him.  Robb gives him a warm smile as he approaches, but keeps singing and clapping and Gendry starts clapping too, not knowing the words, or what’s being said, but if he can’t be in the swirling dancing circle, at least he can clap on rhythm.

That is when Arya appears, and she’s beaming at him.  “Hi,” she says and stands on her tiptoes, kissing him quickly, then grabbing his hand and pulling him straight towards the center of the circle, cutting through the dancing circles with expert precision.

“Are there any particular steps?” he leans into her neck to ask her amid the singing.

“Theoretically,” she replies, pulling him along.  “Just move your feet.  That’s enough to be getting on with.”  She squeezes his hand at the same time that the person next to him pulls their hand out of his.  He looks around and sees that the big man with the bushy orange beard has made room for someone else to join the circle.  The newcomer takes Gendry’s hand and now his arm is at a weird angle, but he can’t be too bothered with it because Arya’s laughing.  She’s laughing and singing, and the wolf-hat on her head looks like it’s increasingly precariously balanced, but she doesn’t care and so Gendry can’t either.  He knows the melody of the song being sung now, and begins to sing along on lai-lais the way he does whenever he and Arya are at her parents’ place for Shabbat dinner, and Arya beams at him.  The man with the bushy orange beard lets out an appreciative whoop, winking at Gendry and Gendry grins back at him.  

The song changes and there’s an effort to bring Ygritte’s and Jon’s chairs back to the ground without either of them falling down, and Arya lets go of the hand on the other side of her in the line and turns in to Gendry, kissing his cheek again.  “Sorry I sort of left you in the beginning,” she said.  “Didn’t realize how fast it’d all get going.”

Gendry lets go of her hand and wraps an arm around her.  The dancing continues around them for a moment as he holds her, and kisses the top of her wolf hat since he can’t reach her head with it on.  He doesn’t know how to say the thoughts running through his head, that his heart is hammering, that he feels like laughter, that the joy of the crowd around them is infectious.  So he settles on a simple “Love you,” and lets the warmth of her smile wash over him.


	107. arya x gendry week: cat got your tongue

he has been rowing for days.  his arms hurt, his heart aches and he keeps remembering ser davos’ final words, bidding him not to fall out of the boat.  he’s afraid of drowning, but that fear disappears after a day or so when his belly starts to grumble and he needs food–and soon.  food and water or else he’ll die.  

he’s always been a resourceful person. you have to be when you’ve got no parents, and when begins to mist he takes off his leather jerkin and his shirt and catches the mist in the linen, squeezing it out into a bucket.  it will taste of his sweat, and dirt, but it won’t be salted so much to parch him more.  he’s no fisherman–doesn’t know how to be, doesn’t know how to learn to be, but he pulls the leather laces from his jerkin, from the front of his breeches–no one to see him out here–and makes the beginnings of a net to try and catch fish.  

but the fish present a new problem: how to cook with no fire.  he could light one, he supposes, but when he thinks of fire, he thinks of _her_  and his skin crawls.  feels itchy where she’d put the leeches and he won’t let himself scratch there.  he doesn’t want to touch, doesn’t want to remember.  

when he sees some driftwood, he rows towards it and pulls it aboard his little vessel.  he waits for it to dry–which doesn’t take long under the hot sun.  his skin burns and aches and he puts the shell of his jerkin over his head to cover him some. and, though he knows its a terrible idea, he lights a small fire to cook the fish he’d caught and killed.

so it goes.  so it will go.  until he finds land or dies.

* * *

land doesn’t come in the end, but a ship does–a merchant vessel with purple sails, and he hears shouts in a language he doesn’t understand and ropes drop down and sailors pull him aboard.  he’s heard that the people of the free cities are slavers, and part of him hates that he’s sunk even lower than where he’d started.  another part of him is grateful when they pour him a large tankard of wine, find him a clean set of clothes, and give him some fish stew to eat–tastier than anything he’d managed to pull together.  

they find him a hammoc to sleep in, and it’s with a full belly and a place to sleep without fear of the boat overturning on him that gendry begins to think they aren’t going to sell him into servitude of some sort.  it’s a calming thought.  it would be a change.  tobho mott had done it, and beric and thoros… “ _let go of him!”_

he smiles sadly to himself.   _they should have listened to her,_ he thinks bitterly.   _all of them should have listened to her._

the ship is from braavos, and the captain speaks the common tongue very well.  “you have to, if you’re a merchant.  white harbor and king’s landing and gulltown are all great markets.”  gendry nods.  he’s not been to white harbor or gulltown, but if they’re anything like the markets in the city he’d grown up in, the captain was not wrong.

“you’re a big fellow,” he says, nodding at gendry’s muscles.  they’re smaller now than they had been.  not eating right and not having a hammer to hit with does that to a person, but the framework is there.  “i can either leave you in braavos to find work, or you can keep sailing with me back and forth.  can you tie knots well?”

“i can learn,” gendry shrugs.  being a blacksmith had only gotten him into bad luck.  though maybe he was the bad luck, not the smithing, and it would follow him.

“no home to get back to?”

_i could be your family._

“no.”

* * *

he likes braavos well enough.  it’s a warm place, and untouched by the war so far as he can tell.  he doesn’t have much of an ear for the language, but he gets by after he learns a few key phrases.  when you’re not in a rowboat, as it turns out, it’s a quick sail too and from the other side of the narrow sea, and for the most part avario morelys seems interested in short hops.  “winter is coming, after all,” he says.  “the storms can be brutal and if we’re not fitted properly for the weather…”

they don’t go to white harbor–though they do go to gulltown, and frequently.  avario likes the port.  it hasn’t seen war at all, and so the merchants buy and sell more easily.  but they never stay long.  everyone else aboard the ship has family in braavos, where they’ll stay for weeks between jaunts.  gendry doesn’t mind too much.  he has a little room rented in an alleyway near the docks and keeps to himself, trying to put from his head all the thoughts that plague him.  

“ _your father’s house,”_ the red woman had called it.  

“ _you wouldn’t be my family,”_ he’d told those sad grey eyes.

“oysters clams and cockles!” he’d heard calling through the open window.  perhaps it was because he’d just been thinking about her, but the call sounds familiar.   _she wouldn’t be in braavos,_ he thinks.   _she doesn’t speak braavosi._ he wishes, though.  it would be good to see her.  it would be…he doesn’t know.

he bestirs himself.  he’s hungry as is, and the cocklesellers run out quickly.  he tugs on his trousers and throws on a shirt and locks the door behind him before hurrying down the creaky wooden stairs and out into the alley.  he weaves his way through the canal as best he can until he catches up to her–a short young woman with a bright vest and hair tied back out of her face.  

“oysters clams and cockles!” she calls out and gendry shouts out and she turns.

he forgets every word of braavosi he’s ever learned, forgets where he is, and why he’s there because her eyes go round the way that his surely have.  

she’s breathing deeply, as though steadying herself.  “what’ll you have?” she asks him in braavosi, as though she’s pretending he’s not him or–perhaps more likely, given everything she’s been through, everything he knows about her–that she’s not her.

“you’re alive,” he whispers to her in the common tongue and she swallows.  there’s a war in her eyes, like she doesn’t know what to do, and gendry waits for her because she’ll decide soon and he knows–he knows even if she doesn’t yet–what she’ll pick.   _i could be your family._

“how’d you get away?” she asks and the war is over and it’s just her eyes locked onto his and the sound of the sea.

“i just did,” he says.  “and you?”

she nods.  they don’t have to tell.  they never do.  they live through it together, share it enough to know without words.

she releases the handles of the barrow and a moment later she’s pelted into his arms and she smells like home.


	108. arya x gendry week: treading water

“You never learned to swim?” she asks him.  Winter is over, spring is upon them, and they are wading in the hot springs in front of the heart tree in the godswood.  The moon is high in the sky.

Gendry shakes his head.  “When would I have learned?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, shrugging.  “As a boy, maybe.  You lived in King’s Landing—there’s water there.”

“I suppose.  Never had time to, though.  I was always working, wasn’t I?”

Arya nods.  Her mother had taught her to swim, holding her on the surface of the water while she got used to the feeling of floating and not drowning.  She’d giggled as she’d splashed her with water.  Her mother had been a Tully of Riverrun.  Her sigil had been the trout and she’d swum like one and had been determined that all her children would as well.  Arya closed her eyes for just a moment, but the pain didn’t hit.  It was a happy memory, a safe one, untouched by the woman who’d been reborn in water and fire.

She opened her eyes again and saw Gendry watching her.  “I could teach you if you like,” she said.  “I mean, we can always just sit here in the warm if we like, but I could teach you to swim.”

Gendry half-smiles.  “I suppose I should know, shouldn’t I?  Now seems as good a time as any.”

Arya sinks down into the water then kicks towards him, relishing the feeling of the warm water against her, the undershirt she was wearing billowing about her.  It would be see through by now.  And the voice in the back of her mind that sounds like Septa Mordane shrieks about being here in the middle of the night in such a fashion with such a man.  But it’s Gendry.  She doesn’t care if he can see the shape and color of her through the wet white linen.  There’s something oddly exciting about it.  

“Right,” she says, “the way my mother taught me was to hold me up while I floated first.  To make sure that I feel comfortable with the water around me.  Just floating first.”

Gendry looks at her warily, but he shifts in the water—not gracefully even a little.  He’s not used to moving through water, she can see that.  His mother wasn’t a fish the way hers was.  Arya reaches her hands out as he twists so that he’s on his back, resting her hands under the base of his spine and the middle of his shoulders.  He breathes, sinking as he exhales, rising as he inhales.  She notices the way his white undershirt has gone see through too—the white fabric clinging to his muscles, gathering over the dark hair and a slight rise between his legs.

“This feels weird,” he says.  

“Of course it does, stupid.  You’ve never done it before.”

“How do I know you’re not about to dunk me under?” he asks.

“Would I do that?”

“Yes.”

Her mother would have splashed her playfully, but she was less skittish as a small child than Gendry is as a man grown.  He’d flail, probably, if she moved her hands even a little.  Arya had never doubted that her mother would keep her safe in the water.

“I won’t dunk you,” she says.  “I promise.  But I may move my hands away now so you can float on your own.  Are you ready?”

She steps back and watches him.  His eyes are locked on hers as he lies in the water and Arya twists about so that she’s floating next to him, staring up at the stars overhead too.  “All well?” she asks him.

“I think so,” he says at last.  “At least when I’m not thinking about how I may sink and drown.”

“You won’t sink and drown.  I won’t let you.  I wouldn’t let the Others take you, so I’m not going to let the waters do it either.”

His hand finds hers and squeezes.  “I know,” he whispers.  She squeezes her hand back.

After a while she turns around in the water again, lazily swinging her legs underneath her.  Her toes brush the bottom of the spring, raising years and years of silt and the muck of rotted leaves that have fallen into the spring.  “Ready to learn to tread water?”

“To dread water?”

“Tread.”

He twists and he’s standing in the water now, looming over Arya whose eyes are level with his chest.  “What do I do?”

“Sink down,” she says.  “And pick your feet up off the ground and just sort of…kick them about.  Not too much.  Just a little bit.  My mother always said sort of pretending you’re sitting in a chair and twirling them about like you’re mixing a bowl of something works better, but you can also just kick back and forth.  You can use your hands too, move them back and forth—yeah like that.  That’ll help too.”

“This is treading water?” Gendry asks.

“Yup.  Just keeping yourself afloat.  The water’s very smooth here, but if you were in a river or the sea or something and there were waves, just floating like that might not work so well.  This’ll help keep your head up above water.”

Gendry was not made for water.  He seems to teeter back and forth as he treads, and makes faces whenever he does so.  Arya giggles and he glares at her.  “I’m trying,” he says.

“I know,” she says.  “You’re doing well, I promise.”

“Am I?” he grumbles, and Arya’s smile widens.

“Well enough for me not to feel bad about splashing you,” she says and she sends a hard slap of water at him, the way she’d done when she was a child and she and Bran had played together in this hot spring while their father prayed.  

Gendry lets out a yell, and Arya laughs as he shakes the water from his face.  He tries to splash her back, but he pushes the water the wrong way and it doesn’t really work, and Arya sends another splash back at him as he curses.  

“Stop that, damn you!” he laughs, grabbing hold of her wrist and tugging her closer.  He’s standing now, not treading water, and he’s very close and as Arya’s feet find the floor of the spring she stands too, the air cool on her skin and the undershirt clinging to her as she stands, locking eyes with Gendry.

He’s taller than her—always has been, always will be, but the difference in height is different now that she’s a woman grown.  She wonders if he’s noticing that too as they stand so close together, their breath mixing in with the creaking of the trees in the early spring wind.  No rustling leaves—not just yet.  Just the two of them and the stars and the warmth from the water.

He kisses her.  It’s a light kiss, a tentative one, a surprisingly gentle one for all she’s seen this man crush a man’s skull with a war hammer before.  A chill runs up her spine that has nothing to do with the wind, or the way the undershirt is now cool on her skin.  She presses forward and kisses him again, harder, and his hand releases her arm and he wraps his arms around her pulling her close, and she holds him as though she’ll never let him go.  She runs her hands up and down his back, over the shirt and wonders what would happen if she tugged it off him, let herself see the dark hair on his chest, the rise of flesh between his legs.  

But she doesn’t do it.  Instead she lets Gendry pull her down into the water again, both of them sitting on the floor of the pool, drinking one another in the swimming lesson over for the night, replaced with learning something new for both of them.


	109. “we couldn’t find a condom so we’re getting each other off in other ways”

“fucking hot pie used them all,” gendry grumbles as he stumbles into the bedroom again and he stops short, letting his eyes drink her in.

while he’d gone off in search of condoms, she’d removed the only article of clothing remaining on her body–a pair of boxer shorts he’s quite sure she’d stolen from jon but hadn’t quite known how to ask about.  she’s now lying back against his pillows, arms behind her head and legs tucked up so that he can see her slit right  _there,_ undoubtedly the way she’d intended.  

“you’re sure?” she asks sounding bemused.  her voice is coming from so far away.  he can’t stop staring at it, at  _her_.  the light from his cheap bedroom lamp makes it all too clear just how slick she is.  “gendry?”

“what?”

“you’re sure he used them all?”

“well it wasn’t me,” he responds defensively.  “he can get it.  something about baking–i don’t understand.  i feel like he’s got people back here like four times a week.”

“huh.  i wouldn’t have thought it.”

“he jokes that when he’s drunk he’s slut pie,” gendry says and he’s crossing the room now so that he’s standing by the bed.  he can’t see her cunt now, but her breasts are right there, just under her face.  her nipples are puckered and so very pink–the same shade as her lips.   _fucking hot pie couldn’t restock the condoms._ “i’m sorry,” he says, pulling his eyes–finally, he admits to himself, feeling guilty–to her face.  “sort of puts a damper on…”

but she’s got a wicked grin on her face.  “nah,” she shrugs.  “are you clean?”

“yeah,” he replies.  “you?”

she nods, and her grin only grows wider.

“what?”

“i’m sort of glad, to be honest.  sex tends to be better when you aren’t stuck on vaginal as the be-all-and-end-all.”

gendry blinks.  “what do you…”

but she’s pulling him down onto the bed and her lips find his and her hands are tugging at the pajama pants he’d pulled over his boxers and hard-on two minutes before when he’d stumbled from his bedroom to see if there were condoms in the bathroom.  she tugs them down his legs, tugs the boxers with them and a moment later he feels her hand wrapping around his cock, pumping up and down almost lazily.  “there’ll be other times for condoms,” she whispers between kisses.  “i promise.”

his dick twitches at her words, and he takes a steadying breath, his mind trying to spin with thoughts of ways this wasn’t what it was supposed to be, but each time that arya’s thumb brushes over his tip and sends a jolt through him, the thoughts fall away and his breath grows a little more shaky.  when her other hand reaches down and gently–just the right kind of gently–squeezes his balls, his head falls forward and he lets out a groan that was very different from the one he’d made in the bathroom when confronted with an empty box of condoms.

she kisses his forehead, and he feels her shift underneath him ever so slightly so that she can reach a little better.  his torso is longer than hers is, and with a flash of–could it be chivalry if your girlfriend’s got both hands on your dick?–whatever–he pulls them both sideways and scoots up a little bit so that her lips are more at his neck than his head, but so that she’s not having to stretch too hard to keep going.  god it feels good being there with her, feeling her lips on his skin, the tips of those puckered nipples rubbing against his chest.  he twines a hand through her hair, and the other rubs down her back, running over each bump in her spine until his fingers are passing over her ass and further down until he finds wet, and warm.

she shifts again, pulling her leg back and he pulls his hand away, over her hip and then finds her slit again, rubbing up and down her until his fingers are so wet and he flicks his thumb over her clit.  she growls against his neck and squeezes his dick a little harder and he does it again.

she’s so warm.  so very warm, and he slides a finger inside her and he doesn’t have small hands but she seems to take the finger in without any hardship.  he adds a second and she stops kissing his neck, and her hand on his dick slows, and it’s gendry’s turn to grin wickedly as he slides a third one in her.  she’s breathing very deeply now and he feels her muscles flexing around him and, rather than pushing into her again and again, lets her push onto his fingers, lets her choose the right pace and he–he pumps into her hand as well, their hips moving together, their breath mixing together, their hearts beating together.

“this ok?” she asks him and he looks at her.  

 _it’s great_ , he wants to say to her, pushing his cock into her hands, kissing her forehead, stroking her clit with his thumb.  but he can’t quite find the words and there’s something in those big grey eyes that makes him fucking lose it like a teenager all over her stomach, hot white cum pouring out of him as his body just fucking exists for a moment.

she smiles at him, almost shyly, as he pulls his hips away from her.  “i can’t fucking believe it,” he mutters as he turns and looks over his shoulder.  there’s a box of tissues on his bedside table that he can’t quite reach if he wants to keep his fingers inside her, and she’d slowed her movements as he’d come, but they’re not done yet, not until she can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything except melt into him.  

“it’s fine,” she says gently.  “it makes me feel good, really.”  she kisses his shoulder.

“hm?”

“that i can make you come fast.”

“that’s a way to think about it, i guess,” he mutters.  he turns to look at her again.  she’s smiling at him, and god he loves her smile.  he loves the warmth in her eyes, the way he knows she means those words and isn’t thinking he’s some teenager who can’t keep his shit together when his girlfriend touches his dick.  a thought crosses his mind.  “what’s your preference–that i make you come fast, or that i make you come slow.”

she presses onto his fingers again.  “how slow are we talking?”

“that would be telling.”

she cocks her head, thinking.  “dealer’s choice,” she says, and gendry thumbs her clit.

“you ok with oral?”

“you literally have your fingers inside me right now.”

“yeah but better safe than sorry which is why, as i understand it, it’s not my dick.”

she snorts, and rolls her eyes, and says, “yeah, oral’s fine.  oral’s literally always fine.”

gendry grins and pulls his fingers out of her.  he pulls her close, kisses her, feels his drying cum pressed between them on her stomach.  then he twists and lies on his back.  she raises her eyebrows, and he can see in her eyes that she can half guess what’s on his mind.  “there’s literally no subtle way to invite you to sit on my face,” he says and she laughs and kisses him, and sits up on her knees, crawling up the bed.

“you sure?”

he rolls his eyes which she correctly interprets as “get on with it,” and she straddles his head and lowers herself down.

she tastes salty.  not the sort of salty like the sea where you get one drop of water on your tongue and want to die.  he can’t quite describe it.  he laps at her slit, drawing in each drop of her, trying to figure out what she tastes like and finding himself unequal to the task.  he hears her breath, steady and slow at the moment, and he opens his eyes and looks up her body.  he can’t see her face from this angle.  her head is tilted back.  but he likes the view of her tits very nicely, and the sturdiness of her ass in his hands and when he nudges her clit with his nose, she lets out a little noise that he’s very pleased with.  

his tongue traces the outer folds of her cunt, then the inner folds, and then he slides it up inside her, just to experience that feeling of her before pulling it away and turning his attention to that nub of nerves that he’s been told time, and time again, is really the only thing that matters.

it’s stiff on his tongue, and the moment he licks it she lets out another little noise, not a gasp, not a moan, more like a whine.  he circles it very slowly, already feeling his jaw growing tired, but not really caring because as he circles her slowly, she’s moving her hips slightly too, as if wanting to ramp up whatever feeling he’s putting there faster.  he slows down and she definitely whines this time.

“your jaw is going to die if you do this slow,” she warns.  she’s not wrong, but he doesn’t particularly like admitting that she’s right even when she is–at least not that easily, and knowing that his jaw’s really going to regret it later, he slows the circling down even more.  “asshole,” she mutters, and he snorts.  he’ll save retorts for later.  this is much more fun.  

she shifts over him, changing the angle.  it’ll be harder to dip down to her slit now, but he doesn’t care that much about that.  he cares only about that stiff bundle of nerves and his tongue and the whining sounds she makes as he adds pressure and then pulls away.  

he feels her dripping onto his chin, and decides that he’ll be nicer.  she lets out a full moan as he circles her tongue more forcefully and this time, when she rocks her hips against his face he doesn’t slow down.  he  _is_  getting tired, but he tells himself it’s much more the experience of her riding him that he likes.  for a moment, he imagines her on his dick, leg muscles working hard, breasts bouncing, cheeks flushed as she picks the pace, as she grinds into him faster, and faster, and faster.

“ _fuck_.”

he doesn’t let go of her hips, keeps her there as he feels her clit throbbing against his tongue, keeps her there as juices gush out of her over his chin, keeps her there as she gasps and trembles and guides her back down as she lets her weight take over and pull her back towards the bed.  

she snuggles down next to him, burying her face into his neck and he twists and pulls her close.  he can actually feel her heart racing in her chest and he grins.   _it makes me feel good, really_ , she’d said after she’d made him come.

him too.  


	110. "someone straddling the other while they’re “trying to read” and slowly getting them to put the book away"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for roxy

she’s playing with his toes.  it’s hard to focus on his mech-e reading when she’s playing with his toes.  and mumbling under her breath.

“are you playing ‘this little piggy went to market?’” he asks her and almost immediately she squeezes his smallest toe and her fingers tickle their way up his legs.  he’s prepared to defend his torso from her touch, but she stops and slows at his thighs, and starts rubbing them.  

“put the book away,” she says.

“i need to finish this chapter.”

“you can finish it later.”

“you can wait.”

“can i?” he doesn’t look up from his book and he hears her huff.

her hands are gone from his thighs now.  they aren’t even back to playing with his toes, thank god.  then he sees her throw something across the room that might have the same shade of coloring as the t-shirt she’d been wearing.  then another item follows.  then he feels her shift around on the bed and he’s completely sure she’s stripped off her pants too.

“put the book away,” she says again.  

“arya,” he intones, not trusting himself  _to_  put the book down.  if he does, he’s lost.

“put it away,” she repeats and he feels the mattress shift and knows she’s crawling up the bed.  he stares at the diagram on the page.  then a moment later her thighs are right there and the dark tuft of hair growing between her legs and she’s straddling his chest, pinning his arms against his side with his legs and the book falling uselessly onto the lower part of his stomach.

he looks up and down her.  he can’t help himself.  she’s right  _there_ , which is clearly what she’d intended to make him stop with his reading.  he sighs, and bends his arms up slightly, stroking the small of her back.

“this is kind of a useless position,” he tells her.  “i can’t do anything and you can’t really get much out of it.”

“do you yield?” she asks him.

“yes, ma’am.”

she wiggles her way down his body so that she’s straddling his hips now and he pulls his hands free from her legs.  he sits up, and pulls his shirt off and she shucks off his sweatpants and begins rocking against his dick.  she’s already a bit wet and is dripping on him.

“did my toes get you that hot?”

she gives him a look and he snorts.  “you wish,” she teases, and reaches down between them, finding his dick and beginning to pump at it.  “but i was letting my imagination get the better of me.”

“how’s that?” he asks, relishing the feel of her.  

“oh, just some things,” she said.  she traces a finger over his tip and his heart skips a beat.  “nothing too crazy.  but enough to mean i needed this more than wanted it.”

she gives him a cheeky grin and a moment later she’s positioned herself over him and slides onto his dick.  he lets out a hiss as she does so, and sits up underneath her.  he kisses her neck and holds her tight, then pulls her back down with him so that she’s hovering over him as she rides him.  she kisses his lips and he rocks into her.  

“well i guess that explains that,” he says.

“i’m more interesting than mech-e and you know it.”

“yeah, but i also would like very much to pass my midterm.”

“i’m helping you study.”

“how is this helping?”

“it’s relaxing you.  you’ll remember everything better when you’re relaxed.”

before he can retort, she kisses him again and he rolls them over so that he’s lying between her legs.  he begins to thrust faster, harder, deeper, losing himself in the motion.  arya wiggles underneath him and he feels her wrapping her legs–not around his hips so much as his upper back, pulling herself in an odd position towards him that must be doing something for her because she mutters, “oh fuck,” and he feels her coming apart around his dick.  

he likes that feeling.  usually he comes faster than she does.  not that he wants to it just happens that way.  she’s pretty alpha in bed–she’s pretty alpha in everything–but on those rare occasions that he can feel the way her vagina is pulsing around his dick–so much better than around his fingers–it sends him into his orgasm much faster than he’d expected.

he collapses on top of her, pressing her into the bed, and her legs drop from behind his back.  he lies there breathing for just a moment, before moaning.

“i don’t want to go back to my reading.”

“well that’s what you get for doing your homework,” arya tells him.  she kisses his cheek.  “i’ll be here with you,” she promises.  her eyes are closed and he can tell she’s already falling asleep.  “not going anywhere without you.”


	111. pinning the other against a wall

“quiet seclusion.”

“look you know it’s about consummating the marriage,” arya teases, waggling her eyebrows as she leads gendry into her father’s study.  her bedroom is full of pre-wedding things–sansa had gone  _bananas_  with the wedding preparation–and so her parents had thought that a different for  _yichud_  might be a good idea.

gendry’s smiling and when they close the door behind them, arya pulls his face down to hers and kisses him, long, and deep.  “hi,” she whispers when she pulls away.

“hi,” he replies and his eyes are half-lidded and he looks so happy.  gendry usually looks grumpy, but not today.  today, it’s like whenever she makes him laugh, but all the time.  today, it’s the two of them, and a  _chuppah,_ and everyone who loves them there to be with them.

“we’re not going to have a lot of energy after the party,” she points out. she’s resting her hands on his chest right now.  “you know it’s true.”

“it’s supposed to be over by ten.  we should be fine.”

“like hell is jon going to not make us go to a bar afterwards though.”

gendry makes a face.  “fair point.”

she lets her hands trace down his chest until she reaches his belt.  “we can be quiet about it.”

“i can’t believe you want to have sex in your dad’s office.”  he looks around.  “there isn’t even a couch or anything we can lie down on.  do you want to do this on the floor?”

arya turns him around by the belt and walks backwards so she’s got her back to the wall and raises her eyebrows.

gendry considers.  “i suppose i won’t be confronted with all your dad’s stuff if we’re against a wall.”

“you don’t always have to say things out loud, you know,” she laughs and kisses him again.  “we’re going to have to be really careful.”

“so it doesn’t look like we’ve just boned against a wall when we go out to the reception?”

“ideally.  sansa’ll know.  she’ll see my hair and know.  but everyone else…” she’s unbuckling his belt while she talks and reaching down the front of his suit pants.  “are you wearing silk boxers?”

“it’s my wedding day.  let me have nice things.”

“i’m stealing these.”

“you are not.”

she pulls him out of them, then, on second thought, pushes both pants and boxers down so that they pool at his ankles.  she begins to stroke his cock, and he kisses her lips, kisses her neck, his hands coming to rest on the wall on either side of her head.  

“i love you,” she whispers to him.  her voice is oddly thick, and when her eyes are open she can see the place she’d drawn pictures of nymeria in while her dad finished work as a child, the place she’d come to when she’d been most frustrated by school, most hurt by the “ _it’s just joking.  learn to take a joke.  god horseface.  you’re so serious,_ ” the place, now, that she was spending her first married moments with her husband.

her husband, who was kissing her neck lightly and breathing heavily as she pumped his dick with her hands.  

she loves him so much, and he mumbles a response into her neck, but she can’t quite understand the words.  she doesn’t need to.  she knows what he’s saying. one of his hands comes down to her white skirt, he pauses.  

“this is going to scrunch and then it’ll be obvious,” he says.

“the fabric?”

“yeah.”

“i can’t take it off.”

“can’t you?”

“not easily.  it took me fifteen minutes for sansa to put me in it and i love you very much but you have no idea how this gown works.   _i_ don’t have any idea how this gown works.”  she gives him a look.  “you’ll just have to be quick about it then.”

he doesn’t wait a moment longer.  they push her skirt up around her hips, and he shoves the lacy underwear that everyone seemed to think was required on wedding days out of the way without seeming to notice that it was different from her usual cotton underwear and pressed his crown to her entrance before pushing in.

he doesn’t waste any time before starting to fuck her, because it’s a fucking–swift hard strokes right into her, and she barely has time to breathe because his chest is pressed so firmly against hers that she can’t inhale fully as he pushes in and out, in and out.  she grabs hold of his ass because she wants to feel his muscles moving as he fucks her, wants to share the motion with him because otherwise it’s just her pinned between the wall and gendry.

“this angle ok?” he asks her. 

“hang on,” she whispers and kicks off her heels, feeling herself slide down the floor as her feet find the ground again.  gendry bends his legs and catches her hips with his, pushing her back up the wall as if it’s by the force of his fucking alone.  “fuckkkk” she hisses out as his dick strikes her cervix and a sweet pain rushes up her back.  

“i love you,” he moans into her neck.  “arya, i love you so–”

and he comes just like that, and he’s still for just a moment, riding out his orgasm.  he pulls away from her and replaces his cock with his fingers, three of them inside her and his thumb over her clit, stroking the inside of her and the outside her with a very practiced hand.

“oh shit,” she manages to say when she comes, and she closes her eyes, letting the sound of her heart fill her ears as her sex quivers against gendry’s hand.

when she opens her eyes, she’s back in her father’s office, and gendry is stroking her cunt gently as she comes down from her high.  she takes her face in his hand and kisses him.  then, because she’s a good wife, she helps him make sure that he tucks his shirt back into his trousers properly.


	112. a short miss congeniality au

“I was going to do waterglass music tonight.  I know that’s on your programs.  But some of the girls got thirsty backstage, so I’m going to have to improvise.” 

The audience laughs.

Her throat is dry and the stage lights are  _blinding,_ and her mind is racing.  She’d  _known_  she was right, she’d known it in her gut the way you just know things sometimes.  

And Gendry had come back and he’d basically told her she was right, without even saying that he’d been wrong not to stand up for her in front of the captain.   _This whole plan would have gone belly up from the getgo if it weren’t for me,_ she thinks fiercely, remembering that conference room and a group of dudes who had no idea how to remotely prepare for this mission.   _And none of them had their goddamn legs waxed for it either, and now it’s going to be one of her friends who might die._ She takes a deep breath.  

She doesn’t have any talents–just sarcasm and a gun.  

_Yeah, that and a right hook._

He was going to kill her, later, but she didn’t care.   _I dated him because he told me he had an incurable disease.  Little did I know it was stupidity._

“So I figured–in the spirit of women’s rights and all that, now might be a good opportunity to teach some of you something every lady should know: self defense.”  A murmur ripples through the crowd.  “But first, I’m gonna need my associate to come out here.  His name’s Gendry Smith.  Give him a round of applause, come on out Gendry!”  

There are the dubious applause of people not quite sure what’s going on, and she sees a spot light train behind her and, on the monitors in front of us, Gendry’s tawny face about three times the size of her.  He’s smiling, but his eyes are halfway to stern and she knows he knows what she’s about to do to him.

“Now, I’m going to teach you all how to do the maximum damage with the least amount of force,” she tells the audience, and Gendry’s smile twitches slightly. Well, what had he been expecting?  It’s not like they hadn’t wrestled each other to the ground before, and after all this bullshit he definitely owes her–big time.

“Now, let’s say your attacker is coming at you from the front,” she begins, and waves Gendry towards her.  He moves quickly, and she jams her hand up into his face and there’s a definite crunching sound and a strangled “aughg” that are just loud enough for her microphone to pick up and the audience to make an “ooh,” sound while Gendry, stunned, stumbles back.  “Take the heel of your hand and thrust it upward.  This will cause your assailant’s nose to break and his eyes to tear and you can run away,” she beams out at the audience.  They applaud, and she hears a few whistles and whoops.

Gendry’s looking at her now, his hand on his nose, and he’s giving her quite the look.   _You shouldn’t make fun of people who are bigger than you._

_Yeah, well then I wouldn’t be able to make fun of anyone._

He’d practically sat on her chest while they’d been in the gym, convincing her to be here.  This was the least he could do.

_He’ll be fine.  He’ll walk it off._

She turns back to the audience.  “Now, let’s say your attacker is coming at you from behind,” she tells them.  She waits.  From the monitors in front of her, there’s no movement.  Gendry is staying put.  She turns.  “Come on, attack me,” she stage whispers.  The audience laughs.

 _Is this you not arguing?  Because you suck at it,_ he’d said after the sting with the Russians.  Yeah, she did suck at it.  But he wasn’t playing along and she needed him to right now, god damn it, he’d been the one to tell her she needed to make it into the top five and  _this was how she was going to do it._

“Oh,” she tells the audience, and she puts on a baby voice.  “Wooks Wike Gendwy’s a wittwe scawed.  I think he needs some encouwagement.”  The applause fill the room again–actual encouragement, unlike anything she’d gotten from him when she’d been about to be on stage _._  She’d heard him, heard all of them when Jaqen had jammed those silicone boob pads down the front of her bathing suit.  

He’s stepping towards her again, and she feels his arms–strong, familiar–around her.  She wastes no time in bending her legs and hurling him over her shoulder so that he lands flat on his back on the ground with a tremendous crash. 

He lies there for a moment, stunned, and it’s not like when she throws him in the gym, for a moment he doesn’t move and she’s worried she broke him.  But she hasn’t.  He twitches, then rolls over and gets to his knees, standing again and rubbing his back.

“Your legs are your allies,” she tells the audience then.  “Bend down and then it’s just physics getting him over your shoulder.”  It was a little more than physics, but she wanted to make it look easy.  The easier she made it look, the more likely it was that she’d win.

But she didn’t want people to get the wrong idea.  She hated the idea of some girl stuck in a dark alley, trying to throw a guy over her shoulder and thinking it should just be physics.

“And, of course, if that doesn’t work, there’s always the four most sensitive areas of the body,” she tells.  “And all you need to do,” she grins at Gendry, who still looks a little dizzy, “Is remember to Sing.”

He rounds behind her now, preparing himself and then springs forward.  

And Arya arpeggiates.

“Solar-plexus.” He’d been the one to put her in a bikini on that goddamn monitor.   _Watch this_ , he’d said, and then wolf-whistled when there she’d stood, her photograph showing off legs and hips that were always hidden by her work clothes because that wasn’t who she  _is_. 

“Instep.” 

_Operation Thong has commenced._

_Why don’t you stun gun yourself?_

_I knew she’d like that one._

“Nose.”  _You look good wet,_ he’d told her after tugging her into the pool, after being ridiculously sweet and then turning into a jackass the way he always did.

“Groin.”  He stumbles back, letting out a groan and for a moment her heart lurches, almost as it had the other night when they’d been by the pool and she’d been teasing him and they’d frozen and she thought he was going to kiss her.  They’d been standing so close and the moon was shining overhead and there were stars and then he’d pulled out that fucking snickers bar and ate it right in her face.  She could have killed him for the moment–and for the snickers bar, which Jaqen wasn’t letting her eat until after the competition was over.

He’ll walk it off, she reminds herself, patting him on the back, and nodding him off the stage as the audience cheers.  Arya pulls on her best pageant smile, waves, then follows Gendry off.

“Need ice?” she asks him from the wings.  

He glances at her and rolls his eyes.  “You’d better have made the top five.”

“Oh, you know you thought it was hot,” she teases and pushes backstage.  Gendry’s still behind her and when she turns to look back at him, his eyes flit up from where they’d been resting on her ass.


	113. some fancy lotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insp from jas' tags](https://insomniarama.tumblr.com/post/165169333330/taylor-ruth-i-had-a-generous-sample-packet-of)

“it’s so soft,” gendry whispers.  it’s been nearly an hour since he’d come, and his hand is resting on his now-limp dick.  “like holy damn, it’s so soft.”

arya rolls her eyes.  gendry is no stranger to lotion by any means, but he’s probably never used whatever it is that dany uses to make her skin shine like the moon.  she’s always coming home from sephora with different things that she always tells arya she’s free to use, knowing full well she probably won’t use.

and she wasn’t wrong.  arya had never had much of a skincare regimen, and she knows that she should but she just can’t be bothered.  so when they hadn’t been able to find lube earlier, she’d just gone into the bathroom, grabbed one of dany’s lotions and come back to bed and finished gendry off.

“it’s not that–”

“no, touch it.”

she does.

and it is.  “oh my god,” she says.  “like your dick’s usually pretty soft but this…”

“yeah.  what is  _in_  this lotion?” he asks.  his hand is still running along his shaft.  she doesn’t think he’s trying to make himself hard again so much as he just can’t stop touching the soft skin under his fingers.  she can’t really either.

but she does, and rolls over sideways to grab her phone from the charger and types in the name of the lotion into the web browser.

“holy shit,” she says, lurching out of the bed to return the lotion to the bathroom.

“what?” gendry calls after her.  she hears him getting up behind her and after she’s put the lotion back in dany’s cabinet she turns her phone so he can read what’s on the screen.  “we put three hundred dollar lotion on my dick?”

“we put three hundred dollar lotion on your dick,” arya says, feeling almost a little ill.  how much had they used?  would dany know?  would dany kill her?

gendry’s reading through the description again.  “white pearl day moisturizer…” he says, then he looks at her.  “is white pearl a marketing technique do you think, or is my dick now coated in pearl dust?”


	114. harry potter world au

some of the gazes are jealous, some of them are pitying as arya marches swiftly down the single rider line, passing a whole bunch of families who are waiting to ride the hogwarts ride inside the model of the castle, and may be waiting for another half-hour, if not longer.  some of the children she is passing are wearing harry potter robes, and pointing excitedly at the moving portraits in the waiting vestibule.  

the jealousy she understands to some extent, though all of these people could have opted to split their parties up and cut the line.  the pity she doesn’t care for at all.   _how sad that you are all on your own,_  the gazes seem to say.   _no boyfriend, no husband, no children of your own._

 _i don’t need a boyfriend.  i have harry potter,_ arya thinks fiercely as she reaches the end of her aisle.  there are about four other adults waiting, a few sharing scrolling through their social media, one jumping up and down excitedly while waiting for the ride attendant to tell her she can move forward.  

this is almost like being in a dream, and arya loves every second of it.  she’d fallen in love with harry potter when she’d been a girl, as had her entire family.  how could they not?  he was such a wonderful, brave boy, and the story was so magical that it made the reality of her father’s death a little less painful, because harry grappled with his orphancy with such grace.  and then, of course, there was hermione.

how could arya horseface not fall in love with buck-toothed, bushy-haired hermione granger–better than everyone else around her at magic and with the most ferocious moral compass?  arya was wearing a hermione t-shirt right then–a gift from jon from a fanartist he’d found somewhere online.  

two of the women in front of arya stepped forward and sat down in the seat and the attendant was counting parties of four as far as the eye could see.  and that’s when arya paused.

“gendry?” she asked, just loud enough that he might not notice if it  _wasn’t_  gendry, but that he would if he was.

he looked around, glancing over his shoulder to some of the other attendants who were helping excited ride-goers into their seats.  “gendry,” she said, a little louder this time, and he looked at her.

she watched his blue eyes get a little wider as he took her in.

“arya?”

a grin spread across her face.  “i thought that was you!”

gendry waved the next group of four past him, not looking away from her.  “i can’t believe this,” he muttered.  “of course you’d come to harry potter world.  it  was only a matter of time.”

“i mean…yeah,” arya’s grin widened.  

she had met gendry the summer after her dad had died.  he wasn’t a counselor at her summer camp, but he was an employee, a sixteen year old with a summer job loading and unloading boxes of food into the kitchens of the cafeteria.  arya had sat under the tree near the loading dock, reading her harry potter books and after a while, they’d come to be friends.  gendry hadn’t read the books, and arya had lent him her copy of sorcerer’s stone  _and_  chamber of secrets.  he’d enjoyed them tremendously.  he didn’t have parents–just like harry.

gendry waved another chattering family past him.  “so,” he said, clearly at a loss of what to say, “what are you up to these days?”

“law school,” arya said.  “starting in three months, anyway.  giving myself a break before never coming up for air again as long as i live.”

“nice,” gendry said, and his smile turned a bit sheepish.  “knew you’d do well.”  he turns to the next family whose party size he hasn’t determined yet.  “how many?”

“three,” the mother tells him, patting her son on the shoulder, and gendry waves them past, and the other young woman who is standing in front of arya.  

“how long have you been working here?” arya asks him.  “is it magical?”

gendry glances at the crowd and gives her a half-roll of the eyes.  “it…can be,” he says.  “i’ve been here about a year now.”

“full time?”

“yeah.”

“you must know all the best secrets,” she grins at him.  

“sure,” he says, but he doesn’t sound enthused.  he looks at the next person in line.  “how many?”

“two,” responds the man.

“and you?” he asks the next batch, who respond with three.  he makes his way down the line until he finds another pair to go with the first, then he moves them forward in the line.  then he nods to the group of three and points to arya.  “your turn,” he says. “good to see you.”

“yeah,” she tells him.  “and you.  are you here all day?”

“no.  i’m covering the morning for a friend,” he replies.  “overtime’s good pay.”

“want to get lunch?”

he glances at her.  “go on,” he says, nodding to her.  the line has moved.  he doesn’t reply.

* * *

the ride is magical, and arya is moving through the single rider line again for a second go just as soon as she disembarks.  she can see gendry in the distance, tall and dark haired, and he gives her a wry smile when he sees her.  “back for more?”

“what, like you’re surprised.”

“go on then,” he tells her.

“lunch?” she asks again.

* * *

it’s on her third round through the castle that gendry says, “yeah, sure.  meet at the three broomsticks at twelve thirty?” and she winks at him before taking her seat for the last time.

she does all the things she’s supposed to do.  she takes the roller coaster across from the castle three times, then goes to honeydukes before making her way to the hogwarts express, which is worth the extra cost on her ticket if only for the experience of sitting in a compartment with a small girl who is wearing harry potter glasses and robes and clutching a wand in between her chubby fingers.  

she strolls through diagon alley when she gets there, taking the gringotts ride, exploring the different shops.  she samples both the frozen and unfrozen butterbeer, and gets butterbeer flavored ice cream, just to because she can.  a wand chooses her at ollivanders and she buys it at once, though she’d planned on getting hermione’s wand when first she’d set out through the park with her wallet in hand.

at 11:45 she makes her way back to kings cross station and takes the train back to hogsmeade and goes to stand outside of the three broomsticks, bouncing from foot to foot with excitement.  the joy in the experience of being in the park is not fading as she’d feared it would–though she would never  _not_  think it was odd to see the snow-covered houses of hogsmeade when it was ninety five degrees and so humid that she felt sticky all over.  

but the most magical part of all of it is gendry, shouldering his way through crowds of excited park attendees.  he’s not wearing his hogwarts garb now, just shorts and a t-shirt, and arya moves to greet him, throwing her arms around him as she does.  

the day was overwhelming and overstimulating before she and gendry ate lunch.  everything was a blur, but gendry’s face is clear through the blur of the three broomsticks, through memories of diagon alley and the flavor of butterbeer.  his clear blue eyes grow warmer and his reticence fades, as he tells her about how his struggles making ends meet, how he is  _hopefully_  going to have enough to go to trade school in a few months, though he’ll probably need to drive uber at night  because knowing his shitty luck his funds will not be enough or something.  she adds him on facebook and instagram–neither of which he seems particularly active on–and as she does so, she looks up and catches him, looking at her with wonder.

“what?” she asks.

“nothing.”

“nothing?”

“just…i forgot how much you actually care. how much you cared about me, even though i’ve never been anywhere near…near what you come from or where you’re going to.  and you  _still_  care.”

“yeah,” arya says quietly.  “yeah i still do.”

he swallows.

he is beautiful.  she’d not noticed that when she’d been a little girl sitting on a grassy hill, missing her dad.  she’d been too young, and gendry hadn’t been much older, but she notices it now.  he’s got a strong jaw, and smooth skin, and she could lose herself in the blue of his eyes.  she  _does_  lose herself in the blue of his eyes.

which is the only explanation for how they end up where they do–in a staff-only alleyway in hogsmeade, gendry pressing her against a wall as he kisses her.  her arms are twined around his neck, her bag of goodies is sitting on the ground at their feet, and she couldn’t tell if it was the orlando humidity or the way her heart was racing that was making her sweat as much as she was. 

when she opens her eyes, there’s something so perfect, something  _so right_  about seeing gendry looking down at her, his lips hovering over hers, with hogwarts in the background.


	115. costume contest

gendry works in product design, and she can tell from the detail on the turtle’s shell.  each facet of the shell has a different picture on it, in some it’s a jack-o-lantern, in others, there are ghosts, ghouls, zombies, spiders–all sorts of halloween things.  and to top it off there’s a little witch’s hat that’s attached with a rubber band to the turtle’s head as it slowly chomps down on the lettuce that gendry’s feeding it.

it’s a good entry, she admits begrudgingly.  

“nymeria, don’t eat the competition,” she says as nymeria tugs her over to the table where gendry is sitting.  she had spent three hours wrestling nymeria into the costume in question, and the dog was not pleased with wearing it.  but arya was determined: her dog would win the team pets’ halloween costume contest, and would be splattered all over instagram as a both adorable and terrifying hound of hell as her loyal pup deserved.

“worried about me?” gendry snorted.  “out to get your beast to sabotage the competition?”

“we don’t need to sabotage the competition, we’re going to win,” arya said firmly.  “though your paintings are….cute.”

gendry gives her a look and then looks at nymeria, who’s now sniffing at his turtle.  

“what’s its name?” arya asks.

“sheila,” he said.  “she was a gift from a friend of mine and was supposed to stay tiny and maybe die, but here we are,” he shrugged.  

“don’t turtles live for like a hundred years?”

“the sea turtles do.  i don’t think sheila will,” he said.  “hey!” he yelled but arya was already laughing.

“she’s not gonna eat her.  her tail’s wagging.  she’s making friends.”  her dog was now licking at sheila the turtle, as gendry glared at her.  

“so long as those teeth don’t come out.  we’ve got a competition to wind.”

“they won’t.  i’m fairly certain she’d be disqualified if she ate the competition and  _we’ve_  got a contest to win.”

gendry grinned.

much later, when neither of them had won the competition, a picture of the two of them smiling while nymeria licked sheila and wagged her tail still ends up on instagram.


	116. group halloween costume

“look, i don’t see why  _i_  can’t be cassian,” lommy whines.  “gendry’s too tall and beefy.   _he_  should be baze.”

“you don’t want to be the love of my life?” hot pie asks, looking hurt.

“i don’t think  _you_  should be chirrut, either,” lommy adds dryly, before looking back at arya.  “come on!  you know i’d be good for it.  gendry could be literally any of them.  if anything he should be k-2so.  he’s salty enough for it.”

gendry rolls his eyes.  “look, it was my damn idea that we go as rogue one, ok?  i get to be cassian because it was my idea.  if you’ve got a problem you can go as something else.  but we wanted to go as a group.”

“yeah, but that doesn’t mean that you unilaterally get to decide who is dressed up as who.  i mean yeah, obviously arya is jyn because she’s the girl, but–”

he froze and he looked between them, narrowing his eyes.  then he muttered.  “fine.  i yield.”

“thank you,” gendry snorts even as hot pie asks, “what, just like that?”

lommy elbows him and gives a meaningful look in arya’s direction.

arya glances at gendry and he’s giving her a meaningful look now.   _oh fuck,_ she thinks.

they’ve worked it out, haven’t they?


	117. penis ghost au for jeeno2

gendry chokes into his beer when he sees arya come into the room with a little ghost that’s poking out from between her breasts. 

she grins at him.

“ohhh, is that a baby ghost?” beth asks.

“he’s frightened and needs a place to hide,” arya smirks, her eyes not leaving gendry.

“that’s so not appropriate,” he mutters to her when she’s close enough.

“you’re the only one who gets it,” arya winks.  

“arya–”

“what?” and her silver eyes are glittering with mirth.

gendry leans closer, and murmurs in her ears.  “you’re giving me ideas.”

“good.  that was the idea.”


	118. How was the pull out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stranger things spoilers since this is a stranger things au

“I’m not afraid,” Arya muttered to herself as she sat down on Thoros’ guest bed.  The drunken words rankled.  Arya wasn’t afraid of anything, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of Gendry.   _What’s his name?  Right!  Ned.  We like Ned.  We don’t love Ned._  “And I don’t retreat.”  She never retreated, she never backed down.  She was the only one who still cared enough about Weasel to actually try and do something about it.  Ned had been convinced that they couldn’t do anything, that they shouldn’t, that their lives would be at risk if they did.  Gendry, on the other hand, had come with her.

Which was how she ended up on the squeaky mattress in Thoros’ house, a little too tipsy to drive back home and his words ringing in her ears.  It is a curse to see so clearly.  It wasn’t clear.  She and Gendry had never done anything.  

She did not retreat.  She shifted on the bed and got to her feet, crossing to the door and opening it.

* * *

“Trust issues,” Gendry huffed.   _Ok, I’m confused, what’s going on here,_  Thoros had said, and Gendry had wanted to sink right through the floor of his house, to hide, because he’d known what was coming.   _Lovers’ quarrel?_   He’d laughed at their protestations that they were just friends.  Y _ou’ve got chemistry.  History.  Plus the real shit: shared trauma.  Trust issues, am I right?  Something to do with your dad._

Gendry’s dad didn’t have anything to do with him anymore.  He was out of his life, had been useless last year when everything was going on with Edric.  Gendry had begged him for help and gotten nothing.  “I do not have trust issues.”  He got to his feet, annoyed at the words in his mind.  

He climbed from the bed and a moment later was out in the dark living room, crossing to the guest room where Arya was sleeping.  He’d apologize, or something.  He knew what Thoros was, and besides she was with Ned even if he didn’t like it and–

There she was, coming out of her room in a long button down shirt that looked almost like a nightgown on her.  “Hey,” she began, “I just wanted to say that–”

“Don’t worry about it.  He’s so drunk,” Gendry said, his face doing something dumb because he was trying to shake the awkwardness of it all.  It hadn’t been awkward until Thoros had said something.  Bad enough that the lady at the motel had given them a look when they had said they wanted two beds.  But at least she had kept her judgemental gaze silent.  Thoros’ laughter still rang in his ears.

“Wasted,” Arya agreed.

“Yeah.  I mean,” Gendry crossed his arms over his chest, “He’s got us for a couple of hours and he’s got us all figured out?”

“I know.  Exactly.  I’m glad… I’m glad we feel…the same way.”  She was smiling, and Gendry swallowed.  She was so pretty.  But that was a useless thought.  

They stood there for a moment, nodding to one another, smiling awkwardly, and then Arya spoke.  “So…goodnight I guess.”

“Yeah,” Gendry responded, backing away.  “Goodnight.”

He turned back towards the study.  He turned when he got to the study, saw Arya slip into the spare room before he slid the door shut.

God he was such a coward.   _Trust issues._

It wasn’t trust issues–not even a little.  Arya had trusted him when she shouldn’t have, had been there when no one else had been after Edric had disappeared.  They’d fought off monsters and tried so hard to figure everything out together, and after all of that she was still with Ned.  She was still with Ned.

Trust issues.

Everything they’d been through hadn’t put them together last year.

Except she was with him now.  With him, and god it hurt how much he wanted her.  

He took a deep breath, and got up.

* * *

Arya sat on the bed staring at the door. _I don’t retreat._

Except she had.  She had just retreated.  She’d gone out there to talk to Gendry to…to what?  To knock on his door, to confront him about…about what?  

She should sleep.  They’d said goodnight after all, agreed that Thoros’ drunken words didn’t matter at all.

Except that they so very clearly did, because she was still awake and the way he’d crossed his arms over his chest.  Maybe it was the usual drunken Gendry or maybe, just maybe…

Arya threw herself across the room and opened the door and to her complete surprise he was there, right in front of her, standing over her in the dark.

And then his lips were against hers, warm and soft and she could still taste some of the alcohol on his breath.  Could he taste it on hers?  The kiss was hot, and unpracticed and she was a hundred percent sure that she was Gendry’s first kiss, because who else would he have kissed?  Who else would want to kiss him?  Who else knew him half as well as she did, cared about him half as much as she did…

They broke apart, looking at one another, eyes flickering at each other in the dark.  

_We like Ned.  We don’t love Ned._

And she threw her arms around him, and pulled his lips down to hers again and his hands were in her hair and they were stumbling back, kicking the door to the bedroom shut behind them.  The mattress springs squeaked beneath them as Gendry tumbled her down onto her back, and she let out a surprised hiss at the weight of him.  She knew he was strong–anyone with eyes could see his build–but the weight of him like that…She held him tighter, feeling the way that her nightshirt was riding up her legs as he moved on top of her.  She didn’t care though.  Why should she care?  She was making out with Gendry right now, wasn’t that part of it?  When had she turned into the sort of girl who’d just make out with someone because an old drunk was playing matchmaker?  Was she even officially broken up with Ned?  He’d seemed to think so outside of the gym the other day.

She ran her hands up and down his back, finding the hem of his shirt and sliding them underneath to feel the heat of his skin.  He sat up on his knees and tugged the shirt off, which was not what she’d been intending but she found she liked the look of him in the half-light.  It was right somehow.  Right in a way that Ned never really had been.  She swallowed.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked him.

“I…” Gendry swallowed.  “Do you want to?  I don’t want to push you or…or…” he seemed to be deflating, but Arya sat up and kissed him too, her fingers tugging at her own nightshirt and tugging it up and over her head so that she was sitting there in her underpants. 

“I do,” she whispered.  His eyes were on her breasts now, on her stomach, on the plain white underpants she’d put on that morning never expecting to show them to anyone.  “Do you?”

Gendry swallowed again.  “I’ve never…”

Arya smiled gently.  “I know,” she whispered and she pulled his lips back to hers. 

The heat of his chest against hers was enough to make her blood boil.  She gasped against his lips without really meaning to because of the way her blood was racing.  She reached her hands down and cupped his ass, feeling muscle there too as she held his hips to hers.  She could feel the telltale bulge of him against her, growing stiffer and stiffer by the second.  

Her hands moved along the hem of his pajama bottoms from back to front until they were resting just above him.  She paused in her kissing.  “Is this ok?” she asked him.

Gendry nodded into her neck, and she reached her hand down under the fabric and took hold of him, pulling him loose.  He reached down and shoved the pajama pants down his legs and Arya helped him kick them off.  Then his hand came to rest on her stomach, just above her underpants.  She tugged them off too, awkwardly, since he was hovering just above her, but when she settled underneath him, her hand stroking at his dick, she looked up to kiss him again and saw him watching her.

“Do we…” Gendry began, looking uncomfortable.  “I don’t have a condom or anything.”

“I don’t either,” she whispered, feeling herself deflate a little bit.  “I guess we’ll…” She didn’t know.  He hadn’t even touched her yet, and probably didn’t know what to do.  She wasn’t exactly expecting him to be Cassanova on his first time or anything.  She took his hand and pulled his fingers against her.  They were warm, and stiff, and surprisingly gentle as they began to rub at her.  She sighed and her eyes fluttered closed for just a moment, liking the feel of him, the heat of him, the sound of his breath.

 _Trust issues,_ the words floated in the back of her head.  But those were his–according to Thoros–not hers.  She trusted Gendry.  As much as she’d ever trusted anyone.   _I don’t retreat._ “I guess if you think you could just…just pull out or something?” She looked up at him, and he nodded, a look on his face that she couldn’t quite understand.  

But it was enough.  She pulled him closer, guided him into her, and he groaned into her neck as he pressed, deeper and deeper into her.  She gasped as she stretched around him, and canted her hips slightly to feel more of him.  He rocked into her, slowly at first, as though he were taking in every sensation of it, and then slowly growing faster, and faster, and faster.  She reached her hand down between them like she’d read in some magazine at some point and found her clit, circling it with her fingers, the pressure of his weight and movement pushing her hand against her so nicely.

Then he was gone from her, and she looked up at him, because he was still over her, but she didn’t feel anything the way she thought she would–he was still panting and when she looked down, his hand was on his dick, and with two more strokes he let out a strangled cry and there was the heat she’d been expecting the moment he’d pulled out.

He leaned forward and kissed her again and she felt him lean sideways so that he wasn’t on top of her when he let himself collapse against the bed.  

It was cold without him, and she turned herself towards him, hand still rubbing between her legs, letting the smell of him wash over her in just the right way to send her throbbing.

She lay there for a moment, feeling his jizz drying against her belly and turning to press herself into his chest.   _I didn’t retreat,_  she thought.   _And he trusted me._

She smiled.


	119. Video Games AU V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for kaktuskopf's birthday

she’s stolen his switch.  again.

he shouldn’t  be surprised by this.

he really shouldn’t be surprised by this.  after so many years, and so many hours clocked in playing whatever game they feel like.

but still–he’s the one that  _owns_  the switch, and she can bloody well get her own if she wants to play one so badly, but here he is, watching over her shoulder as she finds  _yet another bloody shrine_ in  _breath of the wild_  that he hadn’t been able to locate.  he huffs.

“what?”

“you’re spoiling the game for me is all,” he mutters at her.  that’s six shrines she’s found that will be blasted into his head.  not to mention that she’d found that weird horse god thing that she’d tried riding  _and_  had managed to kill a lynel before him. 

“you don’t have to watch while i play,” she points out.

“it’s  _my_  console,” he retorts.

“so?  i’m not playing on the tv.  you don’t have to watch.  you can go read or something  or play your xbox.”

but gendry doesn’t move.  he’s comfortable, curled around her like this, watching as she explores her way through the game.  it’s been years that they’ve played like this, her curled up against his chest, watching each other play–or if they’re playing against one another, with the threat of a distracting kiss if the going really gets tough.

“you’re going to beat this game before me, aren’t you?”

“technically it’s not hard.  you just go into the castle whenever you like. the fight’s not too bad if you know what you’re doing.”

gendry pauses.  “you’ve already beaten it, haven’t you?”

“last night,” she replies.  “just to see if i could.”

“so now you’re back just playing for fun?” he asks.

“well, i haven’t found all the shrines yet–and there’s new dlc apparently,” she replies.  “the game’s more fun than  _just_  the story in it, which i never thought i’d say.”  he hadn’t either.  arya loves stories in games and judges games based on how well they implement them.

his lips drift to her shoulder and he nudges them against her.  then he sighs and something on the screen catches his eye.  “what’s that?” he asks.

“where?”

“up there–shining in the corner.  left side.”

on the screen, link goes still.

“let’s find out,” grins arya and link takes off running again.

**Author's Note:**

> I have written some Arya x Gendry drabbles that exist in my [November Drabble Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/860076). Since I'm not going to post them twice, here is a directory if you're interested.
> 
>   * [she wove a crown of dandelions and placed it on his head](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2550200/chapters/5819537)
>   * [The E](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5122979/chapters/12007985)
>   * [you'll marry me, won't you?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8443999/chapters/19405771)
>   * [They meet at a protest](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8443999/chapters/19574071)
> 



End file.
